Trump’s use of Pakistan as possible mediator with Iran sparks memories of Nixon’s China talks and Bangladesh liberation

Pakistan’s emergence as Washington’s choice as a mediator in talks with Iran can be explained in a number of ways. Since Operation Sindoor in May 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump has been flattered by Pakistan’s description of him as a “peacemaker”, and he has reportedly built a personal rapport with Pakistan’s Field Marshal General Asim Munir and Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif, meeting them a number of times.

In particular, Mr. Trump hosted General Munir to lunch at the White House in June last year, amidst the last U.S.-Israeli strikes in June 2025, in an effort reportedly to ensure that Pakistan would not support Iran militarily.

Pakistan’s offer of a critical minerals deal to the U.S. and decision to join the Gaza Board of Peace (BoP) have also helped forge the relationship.

For Iran, Pakistan’s advantage over many other possible mediators is not only its proximity but also the fact that it does not recognise Israel, and thus is not amenable to concerns or inputs from the Netanyahu government. This may suit Mr. Trump as well, who has reportedly conveyed a 15-point proposal to the government in Tehran which it hopes would lead to a ceasefire.

However, Washington’s decision to engage Pakistan as a facilitator for talks may also be rooted in history, given Islamabad, and a different General’s role in facilitating U.S. talks with China 55 years ago, at the height of the Cold War.

At that time, U.S. President Richard Nixon had begun to work on his plan to open up relations with Beijing (U.S. still formally recognised Taiwan as the Republic of China (ROC)), but direct Sino-U.S. Ambassadorial talks had floundered. Pakistan was not the first option, as he and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger considered others, including Poland, France and Romania.

Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), turned down the idea of France as he wanted a “non-Western” channel.  The Warsaw track fell apart after two rounds of talks between U.S. and Chinese officials, as Mao Zedong protested U.S. attacks on Cambodia, which were part of a U.S. Army effort to cut off supplies to Vietnamese troops.

While Mr. Nixon’s need for partners in Asia, as the Vietnam war drained the U.S., drove him to seek China, Sino-Soviet tensions gave Mr. Mao a reason to engage with Washington.

The U.S. tried Romania, working through President Nicolai Ceausescu to reach out to the Chinese government, but hit an unexpected block. “We went to the Romanians, thinking they were most independent of the East Europeans and they were communists and therefore the Chinese would like that. Turns out the one group the Chinese didn’t trust were Communists,” Mr. Kissinger told journalist Tom Brokaw decades later, explaining that Beijing feared Romanian officials would divulge details to the Kremlin, who would attempt to sabotage the process.

By then, Mr. Nixon had also established a secret channel to the PRC’s leadership through Pakistani President General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan, whom he first met during a state visit to Pakistan in 1969. “In Nixon’s view, Khan was an attractive intermediary since he had good relations with the leaders of both the United States and the PRC, and he also provided a means to circumvent the U.S. Department of State, which Nixon feared might oppose or publicise his initiative,” records the U.S. Office of the Historian, in a note about the China opening.

According to one account, the White House sent two identical notes, one through President Yahya Khan, and another through President Ceausescu, but it was Pakistan’s Ambassador to Washington Agha Hilaly who returned with a response first, a whole month before his Romanian counterpart did. In July 1971, Mr. Kissinger travelled to Pakistan, where he feigned an illness and was taken to Nathiagali (near Murree), away from the eyes of the press corps and even his own diplomats in Islamabad. Gen. Khan had arranged for a commercial PIA flight 707 to take him from Rawalpindi to Peking (Beijing) for talks.

Mr. Kissinger, who had been hosted been hosted by Indian officials a day before reportedly used “Delhi belly” as his excuse, to ensure a 64-hour getaway that included meeting Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and other officials in China for the first time. Planning for Mr. Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972, that he referred to as the ‘week that changed the world’, had begun.

The event had deep and lasting impacts for South Asia as well. Mr. Nixon’s preoccupation with his back-channel to China, and deep-seated rancour against India, decided to turn a blind eye as Pakistan’s troops unleashed a genocide on Bengalis in East Pakistan. On March 25, 1971, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight, killing an estimated three million over the next nine months, according to the Bangladesh government.

On April 28 1971, Mr. Kissinger sent a memo to Mr. Nixon detailing options before the U.S.: (1) support Pakistan militarily; (2) maintain neutrality; (3) help “Yahya achieve a negotiated settlement”.

Mr. Nixon’s instructions, despite desperate telegrams from the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka about the violence, was clear. “To all hands, don’t squeeze Yahya at this time,” he wrote, checking option (3).

The crackdown led lakhs of refugees to flee to India, spurring India’s support to the Muktibahini movement led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had won Pakistani General elections in December 1970 but was imprisoned. The India-Pakistan war followed where the U.S. even attempted to threaten India by dispatching a naval fleet, but ultimately, Bangladesh was formed by December that year. India’s perspective was also shaped by the 20-year Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation signed in August 1971.

The Trump administration, most probably, did not delve deeply into the historical strains to its decision to use General Munir to convey its proposal to Tehran, or in sending top U.S. officials to Islamabad for talks. It is clear that some of the patterns from the past relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan have been repeated, although the similarity in situations ends there, while other ties between India-U.S. and China-Russia have changed immeasurably. Much will now depend on how the Iranian leadership, that has continued counter-strikes despite suffering extensive damage from U.S.-Israeli attacks, including the targeted killings of its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and National Security Advisor Ali Larijani, decides to respond.

Published – March 25, 2026 11:28 am IST