Pakistan

Islamabad, September 23, 2026. At the United Nations General Assembly podium on Tuesday, Donald Trump first raised the most radical threat: "annihilating" Iran if no agreement puts an end to the war in the Middle East. "I have a big decision to make," he said, opposing "annihilation" to "much greater greatness" for Tehran. A few minutes earlier in the same speech, he had praised Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as a "formidable man" and described Pakistan as a "great country," recalling its claimed role in stopping the conflict with India in May 2025, an intervention he credits with having "saved 30 million lives."

The Pakistani press, widely relaying agency dispatches, notes that this firmness did not prevent the resumption of dialogue: according to Trump, his emissaries Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held a three-hour meeting with an Iranian delegation in New York, deemed "very good" and "very productive," with another session already scheduled. Witkoff mentioned mediators who "shuttled between the two sides all day," hoping for "constructive and promising" exchanges.

Iran's armed forces dismissed these remarks as "propaganda," promising "crushing, unpredictable" strikes against their aggressors. For Islamabad, a direct neighbor of Iran through Balochistan, this rhetoric is far from abstract: a resumption of strikes would once again pose a risk of border destabilization in a region already fragile, seven months after the start of a conflict that has caused, according to the relayed dispatches, thousands of deaths.

Business Recorder also highlights the issue of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas passes: an Iranian official said Tehran could reopen it to Gulf ships within seven days if Washington lifted its military blockade and eased pressure on Iranian ports. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington is open to talking to Tehran "if it can lead to something positive." Trump, for his part, called for Iran's "complete economic isolation" while predicting an agreement "just after the election," saying his interlocutors should "wait and see" the result of the November midterms.