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The repeated failure of Pakistan’s mediation is, to me, a sign from God that the world cannot simply transform the destroyers of peace into its peacemakers.
A young Kashmiri like me, now in his mid-20s, can vividly recall much of what Kashmir has witnessed over the past 15 years. As an activist and writer, I have also tried to understand the Kashmir that existed before the year 2000, through both lived experiences and the oral history passed down by those who witnessed those years. The place that had earned the title of Paradise on Earth was pushed towards nothing less than hell by terrorism, and the common Kashmiri was often left caught between fear, violence and helplessness. I have heard credible accounts of how terrorists would arrive at homes late at night, demanding money, food, shelter and, at times, even asking for a son of the family to join them. As the years passed, one thing became increasingly difficult to ignore: where these terrorists were coming from and who was sustaining them. The answer, backed by documented evidence and repeated admissions and actions, was Pakistan. Two names became particularly prominent in this ecosystem: Syed Salahuddin and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. Salahuddin, the senior leader of Hizbul Mujahideen, was designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States in 2017, while Saeed has been designated by the United Nations and both enjoy the high-end protocols in Pakistan after convictions in terrorism-financing cases. Pakistan’s own official response to the killing of Burhan Wani in 2016 also exposed the political space given to terrorism: its cabinet glorified Wani as a terrorist, while the government announced a nationwide “black day” over his death. These are not matters of guesswork or political hunches. They form part of a much larger record of militant groups operating from Pakistani territory, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and of Pakistan-based figures openly influencing the terrorism in Kashmir. For Kashmiris who lived through the consequences, this history established a painful reality: the violence that devastated our society was not merely a spontaneous local phenomenon. Pakistan and elements within its security establishment provided the ecosystem in which terrorism in Kashmir could survive.
We all witnessed one of the major conflicts of recent times between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other. As Kashmiris, and as a country that has itself faced the bitter consequences of conflict, India wished for peace and de-escalation to prevail. The irony, however, must have died a thousand times when Pakistan stepped forward as a mediator in this conflict. On June 20, 2025, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif publicly offered Pakistan’s “constructive role” in efforts to bring peace to the Iran-Israel crisis after speaking with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also encouraged Pakistan to use its ties with Iran in the ongoing peace efforts. When I first learnt about it, my immediate reaction was to laugh. A country that has played such a destructive role in the peace and stability of Kashmir for generations was now presenting itself as a peacemaker in a global conflict. For a Kashmiri who has seen what Pakistan-backed violence has done to his own homeland, there could hardly be a more striking irony.
After the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening strikes of the war on February 28, 2026, Islamabad repeatedly tried to position itself between Washington and Tehran. By late March, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was personally engaging the Iranian leadership while Pakistan’s diplomatic and military leadership was simultaneously reaching out to the United States, Gulf countries and other regional actors to create space for negotiations. On March 28, Sharif told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian about Pakistan’s diplomatic outreach, and by March 29 Islamabad was preparing a multilateral diplomatic initiative involving Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. Pakistan then pushed further, with Sharif offering to host direct U.S.-Iran negotiations in Islamabad after the April 8 ceasefire. The two sides subsequently came to Islamabad on April 11 and 12 for direct talks, where Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said several rounds of negotiations had been mediated by Pakistan.
Even after these multiple attempts, Pakistan’s mediation failed to bring the conflict to any durable conclusion. The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding signed in June, with Pakistan presenting itself as the mediator, was followed within weeks by renewed strikes and counterstrikes between the United States and Iran. By July, the fragile ceasefire had collapsed and Pakistan was again urging both sides to exercise restraint. As a writer and as someone who has lived and studied the realities of Kashmir, I must believe in KARMA. Perhaps Pakistan’s mediation is not failing because diplomacy itself is incapable of producing peace, but because history has a strange way of reminding the world that those who destroy peace cannot simply declare themselves its custodians. How can a country that helped sustain an ecosystem of terrorism in Kashmir for decades suddenly present itself as a global peacemaker? How can God make a peacemaker out of a country whose policies and support for terrorism have contributed to the suffering of generations of Kashmiris? I ask this not as an outsider, but as a Kashmiri. How can the world forget the bloodshed of 2008, 2010 and 2016, when Kashmir witnessed some of its darkest cycles of violence? How can one forget the assassination of journalist Shujaat Bukhari, a prominent voice for peace, or the killing of other Kashmiri voices who refused to surrender their conscience to the gun and was killed by Pakistani terror group? How can we forget the Kashmiri Pandits who were driven from their homes and made homeless by the terrorists who received a full support from Pakistan, the killing of police officer Humayun Bhat, or the bloodshed witnessed in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir itself, including the recent violence in Rawalakot? And how can we ignore the death of scholar Osama Jameel amid those recent protests? For me, this is the deepest irony of Pakistan’s self-appointed role as a global peacemaker. A country cannot spend decades nurturing the conditions in which violence flourishes in Kashmir and then expect the world to see it as the natural custodian of peace elsewhere. The contradiction is too stark. If there is indeed a lesson in KARMA, perhaps it is this: peace cannot be claimed merely by sitting at the mediation table. It has to be earned by one’s record, one’s conduct and one’s commitment to peace.
As a Kashmiri, I cannot look at Pakistan’s claim of being a peacemaker without remembering what its support, patronage and dissemination of terrorism has done to my land. I belong to a generation that inherited the scars of violence, and I have heard from those before me how terrorism entered ordinary Kashmiri homes, destroyed families, displaced communities and turned a place known as Paradise on Earth into a theatre of bloodshed. Therefore, when I see Pakistan repeatedly attempting to present itself as the mediator of a war between the United States and Iran, I cannot separate that claim from the history I have inherited and witnessed. Perhaps this is where I see the hand of KARMA. Perhaps the repeated failure of Pakistan’s mediation is, to me, a sign from God that the world cannot simply transform the destroyers of peace into its peacemakers. A country cannot spend decades contributing to the conditions that produce violence in Kashmir and then expect history to erase that record when it walks into another conflict carrying the flag of mediation. Peace is not a title that can be claimed at a diplomatic table. It is a responsibility that has to be demonstrated through conduct.
As a Kashmiri who has seen what conflict does to the ordinary life of an ordinary human being, I genuinely wish to see the global order return to a place where disputes are settled through dialogue, where civilians do not become the price of geopolitical calculations, and where peace prevails from the Middle East and across the world. But in that global pursuit of peace, Pakistan cannot simply emerge as the natural custodian of it. For those of us who have lived through the consequences of its policies in Kashmir, there is a painful contradiction that cannot be ignored. Perhaps the answer of KARMA is precisely this: those who have spent years destroying peace must first change their own record before asking the world to recognise them as peacemakers. Until then, the world may continue to hear Pakistan’s claims of mediation, but history will continue to remind us of the peace it failed to preserve in its own neighbourhood.
Email: soulofkashmir1@gmail.com
