Pakistan continues diplomatic push to end conflict: CDFPakistan continues diplomatic push to end conflict: CDF

Tehran
Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir on Tuesday met senior Iranian officials as Pakistan continued its diplomatic push to end the US-Iran conflict.
Pakistan is a ​key mediator between the US and Iran. Its earlier mediation efforts with ​both parties resulted in an interim peace agreement ​signed in June. But the Islamabad Memorandum quickly faltered, amid new fighting between Iran and ​the US weeks after.
According to Tehran Times, Field Marshal Munir met Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsin Rezaei during his visit.
Field Marshal Munir and Iranian President Pezeshkian discussed mediation efforts and regional developments, Iran’s Nournews reported.
During a meeting with CDF Munir, Major General Rezaei said Iran would not transfer any of its enriched nuclear material abroad.
“Not even the slightest amount of enriched nuclear material will be taken out of Iran,” Rezaei said, describing the material as a major asset and a national treasure of the Iranian people, intended for use within the country.
He said the Iranian people and officials were united in their position that negotiations would not take place until the United States took steps to build trust.
“The first step towards building that trust is for the United States to fulfil Iran’s conditions,” he said, while emphasising the close ties between the peoples of Iran and Pakistan.
Field Marshal Munir also met Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to discuss the conflict between Iran and the United States.
During the meeting in Tehran, Ghalibaf said Washington could not win Tehran’s trust unless it implemented the seven conditions Iran had presented in New York. He added that Iran had nothing new to say on the matter.
Earlier, Iranian media reported that CDF Munir arrived in Tehran on Tuesday with a delegation of officials to meet senior Iranian officials, according to Mehr News Agency.
According to Tasnim News Agency, he was scheduled to meet Iranian officials to discuss diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict between Iran and the US, as well as broader regional developments.
US-Iran negotiations ongoing as regional tensions mount: Qatari official
Negotiations between Iran and the US remain ongoing, with both sides continuing to engage as regional tensions deepen, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said on Tuesday.
“The negotiation is ongoing. We are seeing engagement from the parties,” Ansari, who also serves as an adviser to the Qatari prime minister, said at the Global Security Forum in Doha.
He said discussions were taking place with regional partners and expressed hope that the process would eventually produce an agreement, while warning that conditions on the ground were becoming increasingly difficult.
“Escalation left unchecked will mean that we are spiraling towards a regional war that will expand beyond the borders of our region,” he warned.
Ansari said the current process followed an earlier attempt to use a ceasefire as a pathway toward negotiations, but that effort ultimately failed and fighting resumed.
“Any ceasefire is basically a door that opens towards a destination rather than the destination itself,” he said, adding that the previous ceasefire “broke down again.”
On Yemen, Ansari said the conflict could be linked to tensions involving Iran but also had its own dynamics, describing the latest developments as part of an “escalatory ladder” that began in 2023.
“The only way to make sure that doesn’t continue is to start defusing all of these conflicts at the same time,” he said.
The spokesman voiced concern over political statements coming from Israel, saying regional instability should not be used for domestic political purposes.
“We are concerned about a lot of the statements coming out, political statements that are coming out, especially from Israel,” he said, adding that exploiting regional instability for political infighting was “not something that any responsible statesman should do.”
No peace partner in Israel
Turning to Gaza and the broader Palestinian question, Ansari said prospects for a political settlement were being undermined by the absence of a viable peace process.
“Sadly, right now we do not have a partner for peace in Israel,” he said, questioning whether Israeli political parties and candidates were offering any path toward peace with Palestinians.
“The only thing that we hear coming out of Israel right now is about war and death and destruction,” he said, warning that “war begets war, conflict begets conflict.”
Since October 2023, Israel has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and injured over 175,000 others during its war on Gaza, while around 90% of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
Ansari said successful mediation did not require the parties to trust one another, but rather to have confidence in the process itself.
“It is trust in the process, not trust in each other, that allows for mediation to succeed,” he said.
Iran warns any US attack will be met with retaliation, dismisses claims of no-response deal
Iran warned on Tuesday that any US military attack would be met with retaliation, dismissing claims that Washington had conveyed a message expecting Tehran not to respond to a potential strike.
Speaking at his weekly press conference, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei described suggestions that the US could attack Iran without facing retaliation as an “illusion.”
Baghaei rejected claims that Washington had sent a message based on the premise that Iran should refrain from responding to a potential US attack.
He said Tehran had demonstrated that it would not leave any military strike unanswered. “If our response is not stronger, it will certainly be equal in force,” he said.
The spokesperson stressed that the era of the US carrying out attacks and withdrawing without consequences was over.
His remarks came in response to claims concerning a possible US attack on Pickaxe Mountain in Iran.