Pakistan says progress was made in Tehran, but Iran’s security establishment remains wary of Washington.
Islamabad, Pakistan — Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir spent Monday moving through the power corridors of Tehran: the presidency, parliament, the Supreme National Security Council, and the foreign and interior ministries.
He met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, as well as Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is Tehran’s chief negotiator in talks with the United States to end their now six-month-long war.
But amid a deadlock in those peace negotiations, many analysts say that Munir’s true test as mediator will lie in his ability to use his position as an influential military leader to convince his Iranian counterparts in olive uniforms to agree to a return to talks with Washington.
Days before Munir’s visit, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told a gathering of doctors in Tehran that it was time to end the war while Iran held the advantage, a message aimed as much at Tehran’s own security establishment as at Washington.
“It is better that we bring the war to an end now as we are in a position of power and dignity,” he said, adding that “the whole world acknowledges our victory”.
Hours later, on August 21, the chief of the general staff of Iran’s armed forces, Major-General Ali Abdollahi, promised “revolutionary, crushing, regret-inducing and devastating” responses to any American miscalculation.
