Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has postponed his visit to Switzerland for the US-Iran peace deal signing after the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding electronically, his spokesperson said on Thursday.
"The proposed visit has been postponed as the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has already been electronically signed, has entered into force, and is now under implementation," spokesperson Mosharraf Zaidi told AFP.
The signing was scheduled to take place at the Bürgenstock resort in central Switzerland on Friday.
The announcement of Sharif postponing his visit came hours after he posted on social media that the agreement would come into force with immediate effect.
"As a first step, the Islamic Republic of Iran will instantly reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the United States of America will immediately lift the naval blockade," the Pakistani premier wrote on X.
The Strait of Hormuz has been under a virtual Iranian blockade since early March as Tehran retaliated for US-Israeli strikes in late February that triggered the Middle East conflict. In response, Washington imposed a naval blockade on Iran in April. Around 20% of the world’s crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
US-Iran ceremony cancelled altogether?
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, who also heads the foreign ministry, told BBC Urdu that the signing ceremony has been cancelled as the Memorandum of Understanding has already been signed remotely.
Questions were first raised about the event’s prospects after Sharif edited his post on X earlier in the day, removing a paragraph that stated: “Pakistan, with the support of co-mediator State of Qatar, will host the official ceremony as scheduled on 19 June 2026 in Switzerland, to commemorate this landmark event and commence with the technical level talks.”
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