ISTANBUL — The chief of Pakistan’s army was traveling Friday to Tehran for a third round of talks with Iranian leaders this week about ending the U.S.-Iran war as Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there had been “slight progress” in the negotiations.
Pakistan, led by Field Marshal Asim Munir, has been working to mediate a peace deal between Iran and the U.S. since he facilitated face-to-face talks between the two countries in Islamabad last month.
Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Tehran to discuss the fast-moving situation, according to Iran’s Tasnim state media outlet, with Field Marshal Munir expected to arrive by the weekend. They are working frantically to finalize a deal as President Trump threatens to bomb the Islamic republic if it doesn’t agree to give up its nuclear-weapon ambitions.
“We are in constant communication with him,” Mr. Rubio said of Field Marshal Munir on the sidelines of NATO meetings in Sweden. “The highest levels of our government are constantly talking to him.”
Pakistan, and specifically Field Marshal Munir, was picked to mediate the negotiations between the two warring countries because of his long history with Iran and good standing with Mr. Trump. The U.S. and Israel started the war Feb. 28 with airstrikes that killed Iran’s top leaders and decimated its military infrastructure. Iran retaliated by clamping down on maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy choke point.
Field Marshal Munir has a decade of dealing with Iranian intelligence, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, foreign ministers and presidents, a retired Pakistani chief of general staff told The Washington Times.
“By virtue of the last 10 years in various appointments, director general of military intelligence, then director general of [Inter-Services Intelligence], then chief of army staff, he had personal connections at four levels: intelligence, armed forces, IRGC and political leadership,” said retired Lt. Gen. Muhammad Saeed, the Pakistan Army’s chief of general staff until 2023. “The Iranians knew he could talk to President Trump very frequently, compared to hardly anyone in the region who could.”
Iran’s ambassador to Islamabad, Reza Amiri Moghadam, told reporters this month that Tehran would “do talks in Pakistan and nowhere else, because we trust Pakistan.”
Meanwhile, the Munir-Trump relationship began after the four-day India-Pakistan war last May, when Pakistan backed Mr. Trump’s claims that he had brokered a ceasefire while India rejected them. Mr. Trump has since called Field Marshal Munir his “favorite field marshal.”
The relationship was not established earlier because of the two countries’ history over Afghanistan. Pakistani military leadership warned their American counterparts in 2010 that the Afghanistan war could not be won, even if the U.S. military strategy was delivering, because the policy itself was flawed, Gen. Saeed said. The Army chief warned President Obama in writing, but the Obama and Biden administrations continued to view Pakistan through the Afghanistan lens. Mr. Trump’s 2025 outreach to Field Marshal Munir broke that pattern.
“There is some personal chemistry between these two men,” Gen. Saeed said of Mr. Trump and Field Marshal Munir. “They love talking in black and white. They both deal in gray.”
International support
The mediation work rehabilitates Pakistan’s U.S. ties after Mr. Trump, during his first term in 2018, called Pakistan a “safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan” and suspended up to $1.3 billion in security and military assistance. U.S. special forces in 2011 hunted down and killed 9/11 architect Obama bin Laden in Pakistan, where he had been living for nine years after the attacks.
Analysts at the Observer Research Foundation say Pakistan’s mediation role gives the country’s military establishment legitimacy, with a transactional base in cryptocurrency, critical minerals and counterterrorism cooperation that will continue as long as Mr. Trump stays in office.
World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm 60% owned by Mr. Trump and his affiliates, signed a letter of intent with the Pakistan Crypto Council in April 2025 and a January stablecoin agreement with the State Bank of Pakistan. The Trump administration exempted $397 million in Pakistani security assistance from its February 2025 foreign aid freeze. Pakistan nominated Mr. Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize after he brokered the India-Pakistan ceasefire.
The region’s traditional mediators, Qatar and Oman, became parties to the war when Iran turned on them, targeting their infrastructure in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli strikes that began three months ago. Israeli strikes on Doha in 2025 had already knocked Qatar out of the broker role, while Oman’s mediation track collapsed when Iran targeted its ports, ships and towns.
Pakistan, meanwhile, does not recognize Israel and carries no Israeli relationship Tehran would object to.
Pakistan has international support for its mediation role, starting with China, which gets most of its oil and gas from ships that use the now-blockaded Strait of Hormuz. On March 31, Pakistan and China signed a joint five-point peace plan to end the Iran War, and Field Marshal Munir was the senior interlocutor in a March 29 high-level meeting in Islamabad with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt on de-escalating the war.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which both have been targeted by Iranian strikes, have publicly endorsed Pakistan’s mediation, while the United Arab Emirates has not.
In New Delhi, the response to Pakistan’s mediation has been measured rather than alarmed. Harsh V. Pant, head of foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation, told The Times that Indian policymakers are “not particularly perturbed” by Pakistan’s involvement.
“But [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi’s ability to maneuver is getting constrained because of the Pakistan factor,” Mr. Pant said. “The questions of the Cold War are coming back. Can America be trusted ever? Will America always go back to Pakistan?”
Indian public opinion has turned against the U.S. in response to Mr. Trump’s elevation of Washington’s relationship with Pakistan, Mr. Pant said, keeping Mr. Modi from deeper outreach to Washington. However, he argued the India-U.S. relationship will reassert itself once Mr. Trump’s personal preferences yield.
Objections in the Senate
Pakistan is mediating over the objections of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a national security hawk who says he doesn’t trust officials there. The South Carolina Republican told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee this month that he wanted Mr. Trump to replace Pakistan as mediator.
“I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw them,” he said, calling for “a complete reevaluation” of the relationship. Mr. Trump publicly backed Field Marshal Munir the same day.
Mr. Graham has several reasons to distrust Pakistan, starting with a May 11 report that Iranian military aircraft were parked at Pakistan’s Nur Khan air base during the war.
Mr. Graham this week reiterated his skepticism about Pakistani mediators’ efforts to broker the deal.
“I’m hearing that Pakistan’s Field Marshal may travel to Iran — what could go wrong?! Maybe he’ll report the status of Iranian military aircraft being housed on Pakistani air bases?” He wrote on X. “Like so many, I’m watching very closely what unfolds regarding, yet again, another effort to reach a deal with the Iranian regime. I wish all involved success that is real.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Office rejected the air base report as “misleading and sensationalized.”
Gen. Saeed went further. “It is naive to think that Pakistan would, during the conflict, allow Iran to place their critical assets there and hide it from everyone in the world,” he said. “Anyone repeating that account has been ill-served by his sources.”
Mr. Graham’s doubt rests on more than the Nur Khan aircraft. U.S. officials say Chinese companies have been routing clandestine arms sales to Iran through Pakistan’s China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Caspian Sea, with shipments transiting third countries to conceal their origin.
The IRGC’s Aerospace Force acquired a Chinese spy satellite for $36.6 million in late 2024 and used it to monitor U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq before Iran struck them in March. China’s foreign ministry has called its arms exports “prudent and responsible” and dismissed the reports.
Mr. Graham’s nearest ally on Pakistan is the UAE. Foreign policy adviser Anwar Gargash told a Dubai conference last month that regional containment policies, including mediation, had “failed miserably.” The UAE said Tuesday that drones striking its Barakah nuclear power plant on Sunday came from Iraqi territory, with Iranian-backed militias the likely perpetrators, giving Abu Dhabi a fresh grievance even as Pakistan continued its mediation push.
Gen. Saeed extended his skepticism to post-ceasefire drone strikes on UAE and Saudi infrastructure. “In this part of the world, particularly in the Middle East and even in Pakistan, people increasingly believe that whatever is being fired now, no matter from what territory, is not Iran but Israel or some other third party,” he said. “They do not believe what is happening after the ceasefire is being done deliberately by Iranians.”
Pakistan’s woes
“Pakistan has vulnerabilities of all kinds, and it is an economic basket case,” Mr. Pant said. “When you have a country being mal-governed like this, the only option becomes that it allows itself to be used by other countries.”
The country received $38.3 billion in remittances in 2025, with 60-65% percent originating in Gulf states. Saudi Arabia has $3 billion on deposit at the State Bank of Pakistan and has rolled over an additional $5 billion in support.
On the other hand, the UAE pulled $3.5 billion from Pakistan’s central bank in April and has reportedly initiated mass deportations of Pakistani workers.
“Pakistan was completely dependent on resources coming from the Strait of Hormuz,” said Gen. Saeed, now chairman of Pakistan’s Water and Power Development Authority. “The government has managed the supply chain. We have not had a single day of long queues at our gas stations. But prices have gone up. The challenge will be more complex if the situation persists.”
Pakistan’s domestic troubles deepen the picture. The military runs Pakistan with former cricket star and Prime Minister Imran Khan in prison and insurgencies active in Balochistan and the tribal areas.
Pakistan’s payoff for mediating the Iran war is the role itself, as it has reached no arms deals with the U.S. in either of Mr. Trump’s presidential terms, unlike other Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia signed a $142 billion arms deal during Mr. Trump’s May 2025 visit, the largest in U.S. history. The UAE secured $9.7 billion. Qatar gave Mr. Trump a $400 million Boeing 747 to be used as Air Force One.
Pakistan’s interests in the war run three ways: economic, as 85% of its oil and nearly all of its liquefied natural gas comes from Gulf suppliers; diplomatic, as shown by the March 29 quadrilateral with its Gulf neighbors and the China peace plan; and militarily, with the Nur Khan air base and the Saudi-Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement.
Saudi ties
Pakistan’s strong standing in Saudi Arabia starts with the Saudi-Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement, signed in September at Al-Yamama Palace in Riyadh by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The pact allows up to 80,000 Pakistani soldiers in the kingdom, and in early April Pakistan deployed 8,000 troops, JF-17 fighter aircraft and Chinese-made HQ-9 air defense systems, Reuters reported.
The mission is defensive, according to Pakistani officials. During the war, Iran struck Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province and Saudi energy infrastructure with missiles and drones. Saudi Arabia intercepted many of the projectiles and later carried out covert retaliatory strikes inside Iranian territory, Reuters reported.
Pakistan has sent troops to Saudi Arabia before. Composite armored brigades served through the 1980s and the first Gulf War. Engineers, instructors and hospital staff have been continuously present for 50 years.
Defending Islam’s holiest sites in Saudi Arabia is one of the few foreign policy positions that is supported by Pakistan’s deeply divided political spectrum. Parliament for five decades has endorsed Pakistani military presence there under military and civilian governments alike. The consensus runs from Mr. Sharif’s ruling party to the opposition party of Mr. Khan, from the Bhutto family and the Pakistan Peoples Party, to the religious right. Sunni and Shia clerics align on the defense of Mecca and Medina even when divided on other Saudi state policies.
• Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this report.
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