Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir spoke with US President Donald Trump shortly before travelling to Tehran, according to three Pakistani sources.
One Pakistani source said Trump wanted Pakistan to use its influence to encourage Iran to return to negotiations amid escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Munir travelled to Tehran with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi as Pakistan sought to promote regional peace and stability and revive its mediation efforts between the US and Iran.
Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir spoke with US President Donald Trump shortly before travelling to Tehran, Reuters reported while citing sources.
Reuters reported that Trump wanted Pakistan to use its influence to encourage Iran to return to negotiations. The call had not previously been reported, and the White House had not publicly acknowledged it.
The high-level call took place ere Munir's scheduled official visit to Tehran on August 24. Officially, the visit aims to strengthen bilateral security cooperation and continue Pakistan's "good offices" in promoting regional peace.
Munir Visits Tehran Amid US-Iran Tensions
The call, which took place last week, was initiated by Trump, according to Reuters. It is unclear what the two discussed.
Munir travelled to Tehran on Monday alongside Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, with the Pakistani military saying the visit was aimed at supporting the country’s efforts to advance regional peace and stability. Notably, Munir was due to hold meetings with individuals close to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei later that day.
Reportedly, the visit would focus partly on tensions between Washington and Tehran. The discussions were also expected to cover recent attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi fighters against Pakistan’s ally Saudi Arabia, as well as the mutual defence agreement recently concluded by Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Implications for Regional Security
The visit comes at a time when Islamabad is actively pushing to revive its mediation efforts in the stalled US-Iran peace negotiations.
An interim peace agreement, which Pakistan signed as a guarantor, derailed last month as tensions escalated in West Asia with the US and Iran resuming military strikes.
Pakistan Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi also held talks with Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran earlier this month.
The visit, however, is widely perceived to be a follow up on the stalled Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in June by the US and Iran, aimed at opening a 60-day window for high-level talks aimed at restoring peace in West Asia. However, the talks collapsed after tensions between the two sides escalated again in mid-July.
Pakistan’s efforts to revive the talks have so far failed to yield results. The key sticking point is the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping has been disrupted because of the war that started on February 28 after the US and Israel launched joint attacks on Iran, triggering retaliatory strikes. Roughly a fifth of the world’s total energy supplies passed through the Gulf chokepoint in normal times.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday defended the MoU as the best way for the country to move beyond what he described as a situation of “neither war nor peace”, while the hard-line new leader of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, threatened Tehran's neighbours against joining the new US effort to hurt Iran's economy.
On August 20, Trump had said he would go for what he called the “most crushing economic operation” against Iran if Tehran failed to strike a deal.
