ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s Chief of Defence Forces, has arrived in Tehran on Friday in a final push to secure a peace agreement between the United States and Iran, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly named Pakistan the primary mediator in the negotiations and confirmed the highest levels of the American government are in constant communication with him.
Munir’s arrival came after days of delay as negotiating teams worked through a proposed framework. He was accompanied by Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who had already visited Tehran twice this week carrying messages from Washington to Iranian leadership.
Speaking at the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, Rubio said: “The primary interlocutor on this has been Pakistan and continues to be and they have done a, you know, I think an admirable job. The primary country we have been working with on all of this is Pakistan, and that remains the case.”
On Field Marshal Asim Munir directly, Rubio added: “We are in constant communication with him and the highest levels of our government are constantly talking to him.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking on US-Iran tensions:
— The Thursday Times (@thursday_times) May 22, 2026
"The primary interlocutor on this has been Pakistan and continues to be. The primary country we've been working with on all of this is Pakistan, and that remains the case."
Field Marshal Asim Munir traveling to… pic.twitter.com/icqNdvxuPu
Rubio described talks as showing “some progress” but said the parties were “not there yet,” adding that President Trump’s other options, meaning military action, remained on the table.
The main sticking points remain Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the US demand that highly enriched uranium be removed from Iranian territory, and Iran’s insistence on the right to collect tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, a demand Washington has flatly refused. Iran also wants a 30-day confidence-building process before formal nuclear negotiations begin, which the US has not accepted.
Pakistan’s mediating role began last month when Munir facilitated face-to-face talks between US and Iranian delegations in Islamabad. Those talks stalled but Pakistan has since served as the primary back-channel between the two sides. Trump has said a deal could come “very quickly” or “in a few days” but warned Tehran must provide “100 per cent good answers.”
