Trump leaning on Pakistan to contribute troops to Gaza force: Report Submitted by MEE staff on Wed, 12/17/2025 - 18:44 Pakistan has curried favour with the US, and President Trump may be looking to cash in with the 'international stabilisation force' From left to right: US President Donald Trump was presented with a box of rare earth minerals and precious stones from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House, on 25 September 2025 (White House) Off US President Donald Trump is pressuring Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir to contribute troops to an "international stabilisation force (ISF)" in Gaza , Reuters reported on Tuesday. Munir will visit Washington in the coming weeks, two sources told Reuters, one of them a key player in the general’s economic diplomacy, and the meeting is likely to focus on Gaza. Munir is not Pakistan’s head of state; that role belongs to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. This would be the third meeting with the army chief since Trump came to power earlier this year. The previous two were in September and October at the White House. Munir was promoted to the coveted field marshal rank in May after leading Pakistan to what was widely viewed as a victory in its small-scale war against India . The position has made him Pakistan’s most powerful military leader in decades. The international stabilisation force is one of the cornerstones of Trump’s 20-point peace plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza. But it has been slow-moving with several Arab and Muslim states reluctant to contribute, as they fear they may be seen as collaborating with Israel or the US. There has also been a lack of clarity regarding the mandate of the force and whether it will end up being responsible for disarming Hamas, and end up in active conflict with the Palestinian group. US Central Command held a conference in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday to establish and clarify a mandate for the ISF. However, it reportedly ended inconclusively with none of the estimated 45 countries in attendance making a concrete pledge to provide troops to the effort. Turkey and Israel were both excluded from the conference, with the former being one of the few countries to offer a presence on the ground to help enforce and maintain the ceasefire. Israel opposes Turkey’s presence. Indonesia has also previously offered. Azerbaijan, an Israeli ally, was widely touted as a potential contributor but has since cooled on the idea, according to a Haaretz report . A hard sell Pakistan, a Muslim majority country with no diplomatic relations with Israel, will find the issue hard to sell to its pro-Palestinian public at home. Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar said in November that Pakistan could consider contributing troops but drew a line, saying it wasn’t Islamabad’s job to “disarm” Hamas. Hamas has not agreed to disarm but has floated proposals that could lead to it. Earlier this month, Middle East Eye was the first to report that Hamas told mediators it was prepared to freeze all offensive operations against Israel from Gaza for up to a decade, and was ready to bury its weapons if Israeli forces fully withdrew from the enclave, according to a senior Palestinian official familiar with the discussions. Pakistan doesn't back all of Trump's peace plan, says its UN representative Read More » Neither Israel nor the US has responded to the proposal. Pakistani military statements show that in recent weeks Munir has met with both civilian and military leaders in Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar, indicating the talks were focused on Gaza. Pakistan-US relations have ebbed and flowed over the years, but after the so-called "war on terror" and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan , there has hardly been a relationship between the two. The war with India and Gaza gave Islamabad a window to curry favour with Trump to try to build a new one. In September of this year, after the high-profile June lunch meeting between Trump and Munir, the US and Pakistan signed two memorandums of understanding regarding Pakistan providing minerals and rare earths to the US, as well as a promise of a US firm investing $500m in Pakistan to tap into its “massive” oil reserves. Then, in September at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump included Pakistan in a meeting with seven other Muslim and Arab states to discuss and hash out his 20-point peace proposal. Pakistan joined Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Indonesia in releasing a joint statement welcoming the proposal that eventually led to the ceasefire in Gaza. At a Gaza peace summit in Cairo in October, celebrating the peace plan for Gaza, Pakistan's Sharif nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Pakistan-India ceasefire and the Gaza ceasefire. Pakistan's diplomacy has helped stave off the high US tariffs that its neighbour, India, has borne, thrusting Pakistan back onto the world stage for the first time since the "war on terror" and earning it a friend in the White House. Contributing troops to the ISF could be a major win for Pakistan in its relationship with Trump, but would expose Pakistani leaders to severe criticism at home. Israel's genocide in Gaza News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0