RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: Pakistan\u2019s military is \u201ccautiously optimistic\u201d about its mediation between Iran and the United States, its spokesman said on Friday in his first interview since a high-level delegation visited Tehran this week.<\/p>\n
Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir \u2014 Pakistan\u2019s chief mediator in its efforts to de-escalate the now eight-month-old Iran war \u2014 has been to Tehran twice this month, most recently on Monday alongside Saudi and Turkish officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would the Field Marshal be going twice if it is not for some positivity? So yes, of course,\u201d spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said when asked whether the trips were a positive sign.<\/p>\n
PACT DOES NOT BAR NEW MEMBERS<\/p>\n
\u201cThe word that we would use is always cautiously optimistic,\u201d added Chaudhry, director general of Inter-Services Public Relations.<\/p>\n
There were still \u201cpowerful spoilers and detractors,\u201d who believed conflict serves them, he added without \u200cnaming them. Speaking in \u200cthe garrison city of Rawalpindi, where Pakistan\u2019s armed forces are headquartered, Chaudhry declined \u200cto say what was discussed or whether the United States had backed the trip.<\/p>\n
Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin joined Munir in Tehran on Monday.<\/p>\n
Their two countries signed a joint defense pact with Pakistan on August 7, saying an attack on any signatory will be treated as an attack on all.<\/p>\n
The Makkah Joint Defense Agreement has taken on added significance as the Iran war has redrawn regional alliances and raised fears of a broader Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n
While the three signatories say the agreement is aimed at collective deterrence and regional security, analysts see its evolution as closely tied to efforts by regional powers to manage the fallout from the \u200cIran-US confrontation.<\/p>\n
After Monday\u2019s talks, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran\u2019s Supreme National \u200cSecurity Council, said regional security should be ensured by regional countries without foreign intervention. The wording of the pact does not \u200cbar new members, Chaudhry said on Friday when asked whether Iran could join.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone who has a shared \u200cvision of collective deterrence and regional peace, why not? Everyone is most welcome,\u201d he said, adding that it was for the political leadership of the three principal parties to decide.<\/p>\n
Asked whether more Pakistani troops were being sent to Saudi Arabia under the agreement, Chaudhry said that would depend on the situation and the decision of both countries\u2019 political leadership.<\/p>\n
He said Pakistan was \u200ccommitted to defending Saudi Arabia and the holy sites of Makkah and Medina. \u201cWe are not part of the Yemeni conflict, which is an intra-Yemen conflict,\u201d he added. Fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen\u2019s Iran-aligned Houthi group has been reignited by the Iran conflict, stoking fears of a wider war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: Pakistan\u2019s military is \u201ccautiously optimistic\u201d about its mediation between Iran and the United States, its spokesman said on Friday in his first interview since a high-level delegation visited Tehran this week. Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir \u2014 Pakistan\u2019s chief mediator in its efforts to de-escalate the now eight-month-old Iran war \u2014 has …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105162","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=105162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105181,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105162\/revisions\/105181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}