FRAMING PAKISTAN AS A MEDIATOR STATE: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDY OF GLOBAL LEADERS' RESPONSES TO THE 2026 US-IRAN CEASEFIRE

Abstract

The 2026 US-Iran ceasefire is a crucial geopolitical event that caught the international community's attention with regards to Pakistan's role in facilitating dialogue and mediation in the “Islamabad Peace Talks”. As digital diplomacy continued to expand, political narratives were being built and international perceptions formed through social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) by world leaders in a public manner. The purpose of this study is to analyze the discursive representation of Pakistan as a mediator by global leaders in their tweets and the underlying meanings of these representations in the context of the ideology and geopolitics. The study is qualitative in nature and employed Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of CDA to the purposively selected tweets of international political leaders and official spokespersons from their verified X/Twitter accounts, posted on 7th & 8th April, 2026. The findings reveal that Pakistan is consistently built with positive evaluative language that is connected to mediation, peace and diplomacy and is intertextually repeated, collectively affirmed and institutionally supported by various global actors. The study concludes that these tweets create a coherent discourse that validates the emerging role of Pakistan as a mediator, thereby highlighting the role of social media’s diplomacy in influencing world perceptions and providing an insight into the underlying power and ideology perspective in the global political discourse.