TEHRAN (The Thursday Times) — Pakistan’s Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir will travel to Tehran on Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has announced, in what is at least his third visit to the Iranian capital this year tied specifically to Islamabad’s efforts to mediate between the United States and Iran.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the trip was “in continuation of Pakistan’s efforts to strengthen peace and security in the region,” a role Iran’s own government has repeatedly credited Pakistan with playing over the course of the year.
Field Marshal Asim Munir’s mediation-linked visits to Tehran have followed a consistent pattern. He first traveled there in mid-April, where he met Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and members of Tehran’s negotiating team. He returned on May 22 and 23, this time holding direct talks with Iran’s Chief of General Staff Mohammad Bagheri, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and President Masoud Pezeshkian, with Pakistan’s military describing that visit as “highly productive” and marked by “encouraging progress towards a final understanding.” Monday’s trip will mark at least a third round in this specific diplomatic track, separate from earlier bilateral defence visits Munir has made to Tehran in past years.
The military channel has not run alone. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has made his own repeated trips to Tehran alongside Munir’s, meeting President Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Araghchi directly in the days surrounding Munir’s own visits, indicating the mediation effort is being run on both civilian and military tracks simultaneously. That parallel diplomacy has unfolded against a more complicated backdrop inside Iran than is always visible from Islamabad.
Iran’s government has been explicit in crediting Pakistan’s central role in the process. Islamabad helped secure an April 8 ceasefire between the US and Iran and subsequently hosted the highest-level direct talks between the two sides since 1979, held in Islamabad on April 11 and 12. Speaking around the time of Munir’s May visit, Baghaei described the presence of senior Pakistani officials in Tehran as signaling “a turning point or a decisive situation” in the negotiations.
