How did Pakistan pull off the Islamabad MoU? PM's Spokesperson Mosharraf Zaidi explains

From announcing a ceasefire, to initiating direct talks, to the Islamabad MoU - there is only one question on everyone's mind: how did a country still navigating its own politics and economy become the architect of one of the most important peace processes of the decade? Pakistan TV Digital sat down with Mosharraf Zaidi, spokesperson to the Prime Minister on Foreign Media, to find out.

The short answer, according to Zaidi, is that Pakistan stopped thinking small.

But the longer answer involves a room full of tension in Switzerland, a Field Marshal who has become one of the most important figures in American foreign policy, all tied together by an argument that Pakistanis have been so conditioned to expect failure that they no longer know how to sit with success.

Start with Bürgenstock. When a photograph of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif circulated from the summit, his face visibly strained, international observers read it as a sign of a process unravelling. Zaidi reads it differently. "I've saved that photo. It's one of my rotating wallpapers," he said. "That is the face of a man who feels intensely [about] making sure that not one more innocent person has to die." 

For Zaidi, the image cuts to the heart of something he is tired of seeing mischaracterised: the idea that Pakistan entered this process as a “neutral” party. "Pakistan is not neutral," he said flatly. "Pakistan is very partisan… toward peace." Another word he keeps returning to is sincerity.

That sincerity, he argues, is what kept two hostile powers at the table when the process looked finished. "Think of it like a hospital ICU. The doctors don't panic when the monitor beeps. The relatives in the waiting room do. Pakistan's role was to be the doctors." When international media reported that Iranian delegates had walked out and the talks were over, the Pakistani delegation did not flinch. "Social media is supposed to almost deify chaos. Our job was not to be reactive." The principle extended to information itself — a near-blackout on proceedings, not for secrecy, but because real-time leaks distort negotiations. "The negotiation at 6:41 p.m. is not going to be the negotiation at 7:02 p.m. If you start relaying what was said at 6:42, you are directly affecting what is possible at 7:02."

There is perhaps no cleaner measure of how far Pakistan's standing has travelled than a single remark by the Vice President of the United States. JD Vance said there are two most important people in his life: the Indian is his wife and the Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir is one of them. Zaidi's explanation is simple. "The relationship is with Pakistan. The Field Marshal is the channel, and it's a tribute to him that he has that ability." And it’s not just Washington. Zaidi notes that Iranian President Pezeshkian walks with the Prime Minister from the plane to the guard of honour with the same ease that Vance greets the Field Marshal like an old friend. Two countries that cannot be in the same room without a mediator both trust the same mediator, and show it.

What Zaidi keeps coming back to is the physical strain of it all - that these men are not at the age where they should be pulling all-nighters, and yet there they are, night after night, shuttling between countries. Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar travelled to China with a broken collarbone. "He did not take ten minutes off," Zaidi said. "Broken bones are supposed to mean something, but this man did not stop."

And there is one country conspicuously absent from this coalition of trust. Zaidi makes sure to note it. When asked why Pakistan, and not India, is at the centre of this moment, he does not think twice. "Countries that want peace will be engaged in peace processes. Countries that need war to survive will be engaged in provoking wars. And then, when they get beat, running around trying to secure a ceasefire, only to start a new war." He does not say the name, but waves off the comparison entirely: "It's like apples and oranges — except that's at least two fruits. This is pencils, sharpeners, and socks."

As for what ordinary Pakistanis stand to gain, the answer, he says, is not cheaper oil or trade concessions. "The answer is peace. A war closes space. Peace opens it." But perhaps the most striking thing Zaidi says has nothing to do with diplomacy or battlefield outcomes. It is a quiet observation about the Pakistani psychological condition. "We've been trained over years and years that things can never be better," he said. "Pakistanis need to learn to feel good about themselves." May 2025, Islamabad Talks, Islamabad MoU…none of it, he argues, should feel surprising. It should feel like a beginning. "Think about six thousand days - not sixty. The only way to sustain this momentum is to be relentless."