Correction, October 12, 2026: An earlier version of this article said Saudi Arabia played no part in the Islamabad memorandum and that Qatar and Pakistan co-brokered it; Pakistan announced the memorandum as mediator and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif credited Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt with facilitating it. The earlier version also said Iran formally suspended the memorandum on July 18 and quoted Iranian officials and a Qatar–Jordan ceasefire call that we could not source, misstated the memorandum’s terms and the length of the 2017–2021 Qatar blockade (1,310 days, not 1,278), wrongly said the July 22 US–Saudi nuclear agreement granted enrichment without normalization when President Trump conditioned it on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, described Project Freedom as a Saudi operation when it was a US operation, and misdescribed Iran’s September proposal, which was a seven-day roadmap sent through Qatar. Unsourced material has been removed, including a section on an Iraqi security pledge, a calendar of the two foreign ministers’ movements, think-tank quotes, and figures on interceptor stocks, Iranian shipping charges, grounded aircraft, Hormuz traffic, oil prices and frozen assets.
DOHA — The interim US-Iran ceasefire deal signed a month earlier fell apart in the second week of July, and on Saturday Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said repeated US breaches had shown that President Trump’s signature was “utterly worthless and devoid of credibility,” according to Reuters. Reuters also reported that the European Union and Gulf states had called on Iran to halt all attacks and interference with maritime navigation and to keep the Strait of Hormuz open “without conditions or fees.”
Qatar remains the channel. Reuters describes it as a mediator in the ceasefire talks, and Al Jazeera has described the Islamabad memorandum as having followed Qatari and Pakistani mediation. Saudi Arabia’s place is narrower, but it is not empty. Pakistan announced the memorandum as mediator, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif credited Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt with facilitating it. Faisal bin Farhan, the foreign minister, does not convene those talks.
Table of Contents
- The Framework Qatar Helped Build
- Where Does Saudi Arabia Sit in the Diplomatic Architecture?
- The 1,310-Day Inversion
- The Instruments Riyadh Still Holds
- Why Would a Ceasefire Hurt Riyadh More Than Continued Fighting?
- Manila and the Rooms Riyadh Does Not Chair
- What Happens When the MOU Window Closes in Mid-August?
- Frequently Asked Questions
The Framework Qatar Helped Build
The framework at stake is not a new one. It is the memorandum whose effective collapse in the second week of July Iran blames on US breaches.
The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, signed electronically by the US and Iranian presidents and announced by Pakistan on June 18, provided for an immediate ceasefire, a sixty-day window to negotiate a final deal, and sixty days of toll-free passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Under the published text, the United States also undertook to make Iran’s frozen funds available for use, and Iran agreed to talks with Oman on the strait’s future administration.
The Oman talks and Qatar’s channel are distinct tracks. They share a structural feature: neither gives Saudi Arabia a defined role.
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Where Does Saudi Arabia Sit in the Diplomatic Architecture?
Saudi Arabia was credited as a facilitator of the memorandum, but the memorandum assigns it no role in what followed. The final-deal talks were between the United States and Iran and were due to begin in Switzerland. The strait’s future administration was left to Iran and Oman.
| Track | Location | Principals | Mediators / Co-Brokers | Saudi Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final-deal negotiation (60 days) | Switzerland (expected) | United States, Iran | Pakistan (mediator); Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Egypt credited as facilitators | Credited facilitator |
| Future administration of Hormuz | Not specified | Iran, Oman | Not specified | None in the memorandum text |
Faisal bin Farhan has not been idle. On July 20 he met India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval in Riyadh to discuss energy security and maritime corridors, according to the Times of Oman.
The 1,310-Day Inversion
On June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia — joined by the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt — severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, closed its airspace and sea routes to Qatari traffic, and closed Qatar’s only land crossing. The blockade lasted 1,310 days, ending on January 5, 2021, with Qatar having refused every demand.
The blockading quartet issued thirteen demands. Qatar was to close Al Jazeera. It was to shutter a Turkish military base on its territory. It was to downgrade ties with Iran. It was to align itself with the other Gulf and Arab states. Had Qatar complied with even a few of these demands, the current mediation architecture would look very different.
During those 1,310 days, Qatar did not break with Tehran. The two countries share the world’s largest natural gas field — North Dome on the Qatari side, South Pars on the Iranian. When the blockade ended, Qatar possessed what Saudi Arabia had spent three and a half years trying to deny it: a working channel to Tehran.
That channel became the substrate for the current mediation architecture. Qatar was among the four states Pakistan credited with facilitating the Islamabad MOU.
Qatar’s refusal built the channel it holds today. The ceasefire framework Qatar helped facilitate ran through it.
The Instruments Riyadh Still Holds
Saudi Arabia is not powerless. The kingdom retains coercive instruments that function outside any negotiation room.
The first is exposure itself. Saudi Arabia’s commercial weight in Hormuz traffic means any transit framework negotiated without Riyadh’s input will still require Riyadh’s compliance to function at scale. Ships carrying Saudi oil cannot be routed around Saudi commercial interests indefinitely.
The second is basing access. In May, Saudi Arabia reportedly warned it could deny US military aircraft the use of its airspace and Prince Sultan Air Base, shortly before Trump paused the US Project Freedom escort operation, according to an NBC report cited by The New Arab. That leverage bears directly on the American decision to keep Saudi Arabia at arm’s length from diplomatic inclusion.
The third is oil pricing. Aramco sets the official selling prices for Saudi crude, and those pricing signals reshape crude differentials and put pressure on every producer and refiner in the Hormuz-dependent supply chain.
These instruments share a structural characteristic. They operate through consequences, not participation. Saudi Arabia holds no seat at the table where Hormuz transit terms are being negotiated. It sets the price of the oil that transits it.
Why Would a Ceasefire Hurt Riyadh More Than Continued Fighting?
A ceasefire negotiated without Saudi participation would lock in a diplomatic geometry where Qatar, Pakistan, and Oman control the mediation architecture. Riyadh would become subject to transit terms, monitoring frameworks, and compliance mechanisms it had no role in designing. Continued fighting, however costly, keeps Saudi Arabia’s coercive instruments relevant to every party at every table.
The economic case for a ceasefire is not in dispute. Before the war, 130 to 140 vessels a day transited Hormuz, according to Reuters. On July 12, Iran said it had again closed the strait, and its new Persian Gulf Strait Authority said passage was not currently possible.
The structural question is who negotiates the ceasefire and who implements it. The Islamabad MOU was announced by Pakistan as mediator, with Qatar among the credited facilitators. If a Hormuz-specific framework emerges from Qatar’s channel — or from the Iran–Oman talks on the strait — the brokers become the monitors. The parties that shaped the transit terms become the parties that adjudicate disputes over compliance. Implementation architecture tracks negotiation architecture.
The evidence from the negotiation tracks is that Qatar and Pakistan hold the mediation real estate, while Saudi Arabia appears on the list of facilitators.
Continued fighting, by contrast, keeps the coercive instruments live. The basing leverage stays relevant. The oil-pricing lever retains its force precisely because Hormuz remains constrained. A ceasefire resolves the immediate shipping crisis and freezes the arrangement in the same motion.
Manila and the Rooms Riyadh Does Not Chair
Later in the week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila, where on July 23 he called Saudi Arabia an “important strategic partner,” according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
The same week, US strikes on Iranian territory continued night after night — Reuters counted a seventh straight night by July 18 — expanding the war to a scale that makes resolution more urgent for every party, including the one in Riyadh.
The pattern extends beyond Manila. The decisions that will determine whether Hormuz reopens, under what terms, and with what monitoring run through Pakistan’s mediation, Qatar’s channel, the Iran–Oman talks on the strait and a US-Iran negotiation that was due to begin in Switzerland. Saudi Arabia chairs none of them.
What Happens When the MOU Window Closes in Mid-August?
When the Islamabad MOU’s sixty-day negotiating window runs out in mid-August, so does its provision for toll-free passage through Hormuz, which the text limited to “60 days only.” Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority has already said permits would be issued only “as soon as stability and calm are restored.” The mediators would negotiate whatever framework replaces the memorandum, if anything replaces it at all.
The interim deal fell apart in the second week of July, according to Reuters. Mojtaba Khamenei called Trump’s signature “utterly worthless and devoid of credibility,” and Reuters reported that his whereabouts remain a mystery. The framework has collapsed in practice, but it remains the only text both presidents signed. Only the mediators have standing to resolve it.
After the window closes, the cost of transit through Hormuz is likely to be set by Iran’s strait authority, the insurance market, and whatever monitoring arrangement the mediators manage to establish. Saudi crude that uses the strait will do so on those terms.
The actors who negotiated the MOU are positioned to negotiate its successor. Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister holds the channel. Pakistan, which mediated the Islamabad memorandum, is positioned to mediate whatever follows.
Faisal bin Farhan will receive a phone call.
On July 22, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman signed the US-Saudi 123 civil nuclear agreement — a deal delivered through the Energy Ministry rather than the Foreign Ministry. The next day Trump declared it “totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords” and wrote: “There will be no enrichment of material!”
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Pakistan the mediator of the Iran-US memorandum?
Pakistan endorsed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding as mediator. Islamabad announced the MOU’s entry into force on June 18, after it was signed electronically by the US and Iranian presidents. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif credited army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir with advancing the talks and acknowledged Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt for facilitating the agreement.
Could Saudi Arabia realistically join the US-Iran talks?
Joining would require three separate consents: Iran would need to accept a Saudi presence at the table, the mediators would need to extend a formal invitation, and the United States would need to endorse the expansion of the format. Saudi Arabia was credited as a facilitator of the Islamabad memorandum, but the memorandum was signed by the US and Iranian presidents alone.
What role has China played in the ceasefire architecture?
China was not among the four states Pakistan’s prime minister credited with facilitating the Islamabad memorandum. China brokered the March 2023 deal under which Saudi Arabia and Iran resumed diplomatic relations, giving it a historical claim to facilitator status. Its influence operates through bilateral relationships with Tehran and Washington rather than through the mediation architecture. In September, after Araghchi met US envoy Steve Witkoff on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Iran sent Washington a seven-day roadmap through Qatar. A fuller account is in Iran Tabled the Peace Saudi Arabia Postponed.
