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2026 FIFA World Cup
17JUN

Munir returns to Tehran two days on

3 min read
10:21UTC

Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir returned to Tehran on Saturday, two days after cancelling the trip, calling the talks 'highly productive' toward terminating the war.

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Key takeaway

Munir's two-day cancel-and-return signals Islamabad now reads the deal as moving fast.

Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir made his second trip to Tehran on Saturday 23 May, two days after cancelling the first⁠1. The visit was described as "highly productive", with "encouraging progress" toward a final understanding. Munir had pulled out of the 21 May trip over three sticking points: the uranium stockpile, the nuclear sequencing gap, and Iranian Hormuz tolls. His return just two days later is the clearest measure of how fast Islamabad now reads the deal as moving.

Two Pakistani officials told Al Jazeera the MOU is "fairly comprehensive to terminate the war", covering a gradual Hormuz reopening, the lifting of the US blockade and the release of frozen Iranian funds⁠2. Pakistan has functioned as the war's primary back-channel for months; it confirmed it was the active mediator last week. The cancel-then-return cycle marks a sharp acceleration: from early March, it took Islamabad six weeks to extract a single nuclear-monitoring concession.

The carrier matters as much as the message. Iran's deal architecture runs through the IRGC and the Supreme Leader's office, not the civilian Foreign Ministry, so a military principal can engage the people who actually decide. Sending the army chief rather than the foreign minister preserves the general-officer channel that has carried the war's only concrete nuclear-monitoring movement, a channel no diplomatic visit has been able to replace.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, flew to Tehran on Saturday 23 May. This was actually his second attempt that week: he had cancelled a planned trip on Thursday 21 May because three major issues were still blocking an agreement (Iran's uranium stockpile, how to sequence nuclear talks, and Hormuz tolls). Munir returned two days later and described the meeting as 'highly productive' with 'encouraging progress'. Pakistan has been acting as the go-between for the United States and Iran throughout this conflict. Neither side talks directly to the other, so Pakistan's army chief carries messages back and forth. Munir specifically carries the security and nuclear monitoring parts of the discussion because he has credibility with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran's powerful military force, in a way a civilian diplomat would not. Two Pakistani officials told Al Jazeera the draft agreement is 'fairly comprehensive to terminate the war'.

First Reported In

Update #106 · Trump says deal; OFAC says nothing

Hengaw· 24 May 2026
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