The ‘proximity format’
The US and Iranian delegations will land at the Nur Khan airbase outside Islamabad and then drive to the Serena Hotel, where they will stay, and where the talks will be held.
Though the two teams will be in the same hotel, they will not come face to face for the negotiations, officials said.
Instead, they will sit in two separate rooms, with Pakistani officials shuttling messages between them.
In diplomatic jargon, such negotiations are known as proximity talks.
Pakistan’s experience with such a dialogue is not new. In 1988, Islamabad itself participated in the Geneva Accords negotiations on the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, where UN-mediated indirect talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan produced a landmark agreement.
Akram, who has represented Pakistan at the UN in Geneva from 2008 to 2015, said that history was relevant.
“Proximity talks have been used before. Pakistan itself participated in one in Geneva in 1988 on the Afghan issue,” he told Al Jazeera. “If the parties did not trust Pakistan, they would not be here. The metric of success should be an agreement to continue this process in search of a solution. It will not happen in a couple of days.”
