President Donald Trump of the United States of America has claimed that he halted a final military escalation against Iran “at the request of a very nice group of people from Pakistan”.

Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Trump stated that a group of individuals from Pakistan, which maintains close ties with Iran, approached him directly to pause the action to pursue a diplomatic agreement.

“At the request of a very nice group of people from Pakistan, who are very close to Iran, I didn’t go that final,” Trump said. “They said, ‘Could you stop, we’re going to make a deal.’ And we really had the confines of a deal”.

According to Trump, the proposed framework involved Iran completely abandoning its nuclear ambitions and surrendering its nuclear material.

However, he added that the agreement repeatedly fell through due to sudden shifts in the Iranian stance, alleging that negotiations collapsed on multiple occasions because Iranian officials would deny having the conversations the very next day.

This disclosure follows earlier statements from Trump, where he explicitly mentioned that the US agreed to a ceasefire with Iran “as a favour to Pakistan”.

In those previous remarks to reporters, Trump had noted that he would not have been in favour of the ceasefire otherwise, but agreed to it solely because of requests from other nations.

“We did it as a favour to Pakistan, they are terrific people, the field marshal, the prime minister,” Trump stated at the time.

The development comes amid statements from Iranian Foreign Minister (FM) Abbas Araghchi regarding the status of backend diplomacy. Araghchi recently stated that the mediation process involving Pakistan has not failed, though it remains on a difficult course due to American actions.

Araghchi stated that Tehran often receives conflicting messages within the same day, which increases mistrust and complicates diplomatic efforts.

While acknowledging that Iran appreciates assistance from any country willing to facilitate talks, Araghchi warned that spoilers are actively attempting to derail diplomacy to drag the US into a military conflict.

He reiterated that there is no solution to the standoff except through negotiations.