Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Leaders' Summit of the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Turkiye, in a meeting both sides used to reaffirm the close ties between Pakistan and Iran and to discuss the region's worsening security situation. The meeting was held on the margins of the United Nations climate summit, where leaders from nearly 200 countries have gathered in the Mediterranean resort city.
According to a press release from the Prime Minister's Office, Shehbaz Sharif stressed the importance of building on the understandings reached under the Islamabad memorandum of understanding signed in June 2026, and reaffirmed Pakistan's readiness to continue playing what he called a sincere and constructive role in support of regional peace and stability. The two leaders agreed on the importance of regular consultations and close coordination to address common challenges and seize emerging opportunities.
The prime minister expressed deep concern over the prolonged conflict in the region and emphasised the need for dialogue, restraint, de-escalation and sustained diplomatic engagement to achieve lasting peace and stability. In a post on X after the meeting, he wrote that dialogue, restraint, de-escalation and sustained diplomacy were the only path to lasting peace, and said he was delighted to meet his Iranian counterpart.
President Pezeshkian, for his part, appreciated Pakistan's consistent diplomatic support to Iran and its efforts for regional peace and security, the Prime Minister's Office said. The Iranian president has been a central figure at COP31, using his address to the summit to demand compensation for environmental damage he says was caused by American and Israeli strikes on Iran earlier this year.
The meeting was attended by senior officials from both sides, including Information Minister Ataullah Tarar and Senator Sherry Rehman. The two sides resolved to work closely for regional peace, security and prosperity, and reaffirmed the need to further strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual cooperation.
The talks come at a sensitive moment for the region. The United States and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran in late February, and the conflict has dominated the background of the climate summit, with several leaders using their speeches to address the war. Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Wednesday that Tehran had delivered a clear response outlining its demands to the United States and was still waiting for an official reply from Washington.
Pakistan has positioned itself as a mediator in the crisis, and Shehbaz Sharif has repeatedly offered Islamabad's good offices. The Islamabad memorandum of understanding, signed in June, was intended to give the two countries a framework for cooperation, and Wednesday's meeting was presented by both sides as a chance to keep that momentum going.
The prime minister's day in Antalya was packed with diplomacy beyond the Iran meeting. He also held a series of bilateral and informal meetings with other world leaders on the sidelines of the summit, including Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, to whom he reaffirmed Pakistan's unwavering support for the Palestinian people, as well as the prime ministers of Kuwait and Bangladesh, the Saudi energy minister and Syria's president.
Shehbaz Sharif also used the summit to press Pakistan's climate case, telling a high-level session on clean energy transition that Pakistan needs about 188 billion dollars by 2035 to transform its energy system, including 138 billion dollars for low-carbon power generation and 50 billion dollars to replace coal-based power with solar energy. He pointed to the country's rooftop solar boom, which he said had reached 22 gigawatts, as evidence of what ordinary citizens were already doing.
For Pakistan, the COP31 visit has been a chance to combine climate diplomacy with regional diplomacy in the same trip. The meeting with Pezeshkian showed that even at a summit devoted to the environment, the war and the search for a diplomatic way out of it were never far from the agenda. Both leaders left Antalya with a public commitment to keep talking, and to keep the channels between Islamabad and Tehran open.
