Tehran
\nChief 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.
\nPakistan is a \u200bkey mediator between the US and Iran. Its earlier mediation efforts with \u200bboth parties resulted in an interim peace agreement \u200bsigned in June. But the Islamabad Memorandum quickly faltered, amid new fighting between Iran and \u200bthe US weeks after.
\nAccording to Tehran Times, Field Marshal Munir met Iran\u2019s President Masoud Pezeshkian and Secretary of Iran\u2019s Supreme National Security Council Mohsin Rezaei during his visit.
\nField Marshal Munir and Iranian President Pezeshkian discussed mediation efforts and regional developments, Iran\u2019s Nournews reported.
\nDuring a meeting with CDF Munir, Major General Rezaei said Iran would not transfer any of its enriched nuclear material abroad.
\n\u201cNot even the slightest amount of enriched nuclear material will be taken out of Iran,\u201d Rezaei said, describing the material as a major asset and a national treasure of the Iranian people, intended for use within the country.
\nHe 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.
\n\u201cThe first step towards building that trust is for the United States to fulfil Iran\u2019s conditions,\u201d he said, while emphasising the close ties between the peoples of Iran and Pakistan.
\nField Marshal Munir also met Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf to discuss the conflict between Iran and the United States.
\nDuring the meeting in Tehran, Ghalibaf said Washington could not win Tehran\u2019s 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.
\nEarlier, 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.
\nAccording 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.
\nUS-Iran negotiations ongoing as regional tensions mount: Qatari official
\nNegotiations 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.
\n\u201cThe negotiation is ongoing. We are seeing engagement from the parties,\u201d Ansari, who also serves as an adviser to the Qatari prime minister, said at the Global Security Forum in Doha.
\nHe 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.
\n\u201cEscalation left unchecked will mean that we are spiraling towards a regional war that will expand beyond the borders of our region,\u201d he warned.
\nAnsari 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.
\n\u201cAny ceasefire is basically a door that opens towards a destination rather than the destination itself,\u201d he said, adding that the previous ceasefire \u201cbroke down again.\u201d
\nOn 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 \u201cescalatory ladder\u201d that began in 2023.
\n\u201cThe only way to make sure that doesn\u2019t continue is to start defusing all of these conflicts at the same time,\u201d he said.
\nThe spokesman voiced concern over political statements coming from Israel, saying regional instability should not be used for domestic political purposes.
\n\u201cWe are concerned about a lot of the statements coming out, political statements that are coming out, especially from Israel,\u201d he said, adding that exploiting regional instability for political infighting was \u201cnot something that any responsible statesman should do.\u201d
\nNo peace partner in Israel
\nTurning 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.
\n\u201cSadly, right now we do not have a partner for peace in Israel,\u201d he said, questioning whether Israeli political parties and candidates were offering any path toward peace with Palestinians.
\n\u201cThe only thing that we hear coming out of Israel right now is about war and death and destruction,\u201d he said, warning that \u201cwar begets war, conflict begets conflict.\u201d
\nSince 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\u2019s civilian infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
\nAnsari said successful mediation did not require the parties to trust one another, but rather to have confidence in the process itself.
\n\u201cIt is trust in the process, not trust in each other, that allows for mediation to succeed,\u201d he said.
\nIran warns any US attack will be met with retaliation, dismisses claims of no-response deal
\nIran 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.
\nSpeaking at his weekly press conference, Iran\u2019s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei described suggestions that the US could attack Iran without facing retaliation as an \u201cillusion.\u201d
\nBaghaei rejected claims that Washington had sent a message based on the premise that Iran should refrain from responding to a potential US attack.
\nHe said Tehran had demonstrated that it would not leave any military strike unanswered. \u201cIf our response is not stronger, it will certainly be equal in force,\u201d he said.
\nThe spokesperson stressed that the era of the US carrying out attacks and withdrawing without consequences was over.
\nHis remarks came in response to claims concerning a possible US attack on Pickaxe Mountain in Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u200bkey mediator between the US and Iran. Its earlier mediation efforts with \u200bboth parties resulted in an interim peace agreement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":94605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104645,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104621\/revisions\/104645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}