Islamabad, Pakistan — Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had two phone calls on Thursday night: one with Pakistan’s chief of defence forces, Field Marshal Asim Munir, the other with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan. The calls capped the most dramatic week yet in the Houthi-Saudi war. Houthi drones and missiles wounded 73 people and set oil facilities ablaze in four Saudi cities on Tuesday, among the heaviest strikes of the war, according to the Saudi-led coalition. Iran-backed Houthi fighters reached the coastal town of Mocha at dawn on Thursday and pushed offshore to seize nearby islands.
By Friday morning, they had grabbed control of all of Yemen’s Red Sea coast. Yemeni government officials said fighters also reached Dhubab, on the Bab al-Mandeb coast, while boats carrying Houthi fighters reached Mayyun Island, at the heart of the strait, after government forces withdrew. There has been no official announcement by Houthi authorities confirming control of the strait. Brent crude surpassed $107 a barrel on Friday, as the advance raised fears that both of Saudi Arabia’s main export routes, the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, could come under pressure at once — one by Iran directly, the other by Tehran’s ally, the Houthis.
Satellite images on Thursday appeared to show a fire along the East-West pipeline, Saudi Arabia’s main Hormuz-bypass route, which carries close to seven million barrels a day over 1,200km (746 miles) to Yanbu. Riyadh has not confirmed a pipeline strike. Earlier this week, Pakistan’s Defence Minister, Khawaja Asif, warned that the mutual defence pact between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye “will definitely“ be activated if the fighting spills further into the kingdom. But with Munir calling Tehran on Thursday night, analysts say the question is not whether Pakistan is preparing to act, but whether diplomacy is the course Islamabad has already chosen.
At the Pakistani Foreign Office’s weekly briefing on Thursday, spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan declined to confirm recent reports that Islamabad had passed a Saudi warning to Iran to rein in the Houthis, calling them “unsubstantiated”. He was equally dismissive of a claim that Saudi Arabia had asked Pakistan to strike Houthi positions in Yemen, calling it “hypothetical” with “no discussion of this kind”. But when asked whether Pakistan was reaching out to the Houthis through Iran, Khan did not deny it. Pakistan would “continue to pursue dialogue and diplomacy for peace and stability in the broader region”, Khan said.
Jauhar Saleem, Pakistan’s former foreign secretary and president of the Islamabad-based Institute of Regional Studies, called the phrasing deliberate. “In diplomacy, what is deliberately not said is as important as what is stated,” he told Al Jazeera, describing Islamabad’s language on the pact as emphasising “deterrence and de-escalation”. Pakistan’s military chief Munir has travelled to Tehran four times since April. The latest visit came last month, days after a phone call from US President Donald Trump asking Islamabad to lean on Tehran. An Iranian source familiar with the diplomatic contacts told Al Jazeera that telephone diplomacy has intensified since the escalation began. “Over the past week to ten days, there have likely been three to four telephone conversations between the Pakistani field marshal and the Iranian foreign minister,” the source said. “Only two were made public, by the Iranian side,” the source added, describing the rest as in keeping with Islamabad’s preference for “silent diplomacy”.
Al Jazeera received no response from Pakistani officials to questions on the unannounced contacts. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar, has been speaking separately with his Saudi and Turkish counterparts in recent days. “The role [as mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran] fits with the pattern, but with much higher stakes,” Saleem said, arguing that Pakistan’s commitments to Riyadh carry greater risk than its US-Iran mediation ever did. Pakistan has been here before. In April 2015, its parliament unanimously rejected a Saudi request for troops, ships and warplanes to combat the Houthis, resolving that “Pakistan should maintain neutrality in the Yemen conflict so as to be able to play a proactive diplomatic role to end the crisis”.
Saleem said now “could pose again the dilemma faced by Pakistan’s foreign policy strategists a decade ago, in this very context”. A closer precedent came this year. When Iran struck Saudi Arabia directly in February and March, the kingdom in April announced the arrival of Pakistani forces in Saudi Arabia, even though Islamabad did not directly enter the conflict. “This shows that the meaning of the mutual-defence principle in the bilateral pact, or the Mecca pact, is a matter calculated by the parties and does not mean the automatic entry of the parties if an attack occurs against the other,” Javad Heiran-Nia, an Iranian analyst on regional security, told Al Jazeera. The specifics of what Munir and Araghchi spoke about on Thursday night remain unclear.
But analyst Heiran-Nia said Pakistan’s role was clear. “Pakistan has recently conveyed Saudi Arabia’s warning message to Iran and asked Tehran to restrain its Houthi allies,” he told Al Jazeera. “This action demonstrates Pakistan’s active and operational role as a communication channel between the two sides.” On Tehran’s leverage over the group, he was equally direct. “Iran has significant influence over the Houthis, although this influence is not absolute and unlimited,” he said. “It is true that the Houthis may in some cases make their decisions independently of Iran, but their strategic interests align with Tehran.” On Friday, after the Houthis gained control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, Iranian leaders were quick to show where their loyalties lay. Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref welcomed the “victories of the heroic nation of Yemen,” in a post on X. Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, was even more direct in claiming influence over the Houthis, as a part of Tehran’s so-called Axis of Resistance. “Congratulations on this resounding victory, Ansar Allah,” Mokhber posted on X, referring to the Houthis by their formal name. “Iran’s might in the Strait of Hormuz and the homegrown resolve of the resistance have driven the US and its allies into a tactical and strategic impasse.” Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Iran and one-time special representative for Afghanistan, framed Pakistan’s position differently. Under the Mecca pact, he told Al Jazeera, “the major issue is threat perception”, where member states raise concerns and partners respond at the request of the threatened state.
Pakistan, he said, “has the capacity to partner with Saudi Arabia in countering the Houthi threat”. For the moment, former ambassador Saleem said, “Riyadh does not need Pakistan to fight any battles”. Pakistan could help Saudi Arabia better “by preventing any regional wars,” pointing to Islamabad’s strong ties across the Gulf Cooperation Council and its channels to Tehran. But Umer Karim, an analyst at Riyadh’s King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, suggested a moment of reckoning for the Pakistan-Saudi relationship might be approaching. “The cost of inaction is certainly increasing,” Karim added, “and eventually Pakistan will be pushed to react and fulfil its commitments” under both a bilateral mutual defence pact with Saudi Arabia and the trilateral agreement that also includes Turkiye. “Riyadh is probably for now reevaluating the situation and figuring out what’s the best outcome.”
