22JUN

Lavrov and Munir visit Tehran in 2 days

3 min read

13:56UTC

Sergey Lavrov and Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir came to Tehran on consecutive days, and Pezeshkian told Munir that sanctions must be lifted before any talks.

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Key takeaway

Tehran now demands sanctions relief before any talks, on top of its earlier call for guarantees.

Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov met Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, and President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Monday 19 October and blamed the war on "unprovoked U.S.-Israeli aggression". Araghchi wrote afterwards: "Never in our history have Iran and Russia worked as closely as now"⁠¹. Ten days earlier a Western official told Bloomberg that Moscow was supplying Iran with missiles, which the White House rejected.

Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, arrived on Tuesday 20 October. Pakistan is one of two channels, with Qatar, that carry Iran's indirect contacts with Washington. Pezeshkian told him that "before any negotiations, they must first end the pressure and threats and lift sanctions", Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) reported⁠². Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, wrote that "not a single gram of enriched uranium will be removed from Iran".

On 17 October Tehran's stated condition was credible guarantees against new attacks; sanctions relief before any talks now sits on top of it. On 21 October Araghchi said the indirect talks continue on Iran's September seven-day plan for reopening Hormuz, with Washington seeking extra clauses: "The negotiating table remains in place."

The same day as Lavrov's visit, Tehran summoned Ireland's ambassador, Aidan Cronin, over a European Union statement criticising its crackdown and its Hormuz threats⁠³.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran and the United States do not talk directly. Pakistan and Qatar pass messages between them. Russia is friendly to Iran and sent its foreign minister to Tehran. Iran's president now says that before any talks, the United States must stop its threats and lift economic sanctions. Sanctions are penalties that stop Iran from selling oil and using banks abroad.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Iran's government is split between elected officials who run diplomacy and the IRGC, which runs the war at sea. A precondition stated by the president gives the foreign ministry cover against hardliners who oppose any talks.

Tehran also lacks a guarantor. Russia and China have not offered security guarantees, so Iran asks for relief in advance because it has no third party to enforce a later deal.

What could happen next?

Risk
A demand for up-front sanctions relief makes a quick ceasefire less likely, because it reverses the order of the 2013 interim deal.
Meaning
Pakistan's army chief, not its foreign ministry, is carrying the channel, which ties mediation to Pakistan's military ties with both Riyadh and Washington.

Source Landscape

This story draws on right-leaning sources from United States

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Primary parallel: In 2013 an Omani back channel led to the Joint Plan of Action, signed on 24 November 2013. Iran received about $7bn in limited relief as part of an interim deal, after talks began rather than before, so the order Pezeshkian demands has no precedent in US-Iran talks.

Counter-parallel: In July 1988 Iran accepted UN Resolution 598 and ended its war with Iraq without the conditions it had demanded for a year, including naming Iraq the aggressor. Ruhollah Khomeini called it drinking from a poisoned chalice, after military and economic losses forced the shift.

Sanctions relief before talks would mean access to frozen funds and oil sales, worth more to Iran than any single concession at the table. Iran loaded no crude in September, so the demand targets its most acute shortage.

Consensus view: Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group has argued that Iranian preconditions grow when Tehran thinks time favours it, and shrink when the economy forces its hand. Asking for sanctions relief before talks suggests Tehran reads the oil price and shipping disruption as leverage.

Counter-view: Nikolay Kozhanov of Qatar University, a specialist on Russian policy towards Iran, has argued that Moscow backs Tehran diplomatically but avoids commitments that would cost it with Gulf states and Israel. Lavrov's visit may lend Iran support in public while leaving its bargaining position no stronger.

Key tension: Whether Pezeshkian's precondition is an opening bid for Munir to carry to Washington, or a rule that the IRGC will enforce against any deal.

First Reported In

Update #182 · Iran says it mined Hormuz and hit 7 ships

CBS News· 22 Oct 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Iran demands guarantees before US talks

Pezeshkian added sanctions relief before talks to the 17 October demand for guarantees.

Occurred 17 Oct 2026

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Qatar brings the US answer to Araghchi

Araghchi said indirect talks continue on the Hormuz plan Qatar carried in September.

Occurred 29 Sept 2026

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This Event

Lavrov and Munir visit Tehran in 2 days

Iran has raised its price for talks with Washington, adding sanctions relief before negotiations to its earlier demand for guarantees.

Led to

Rezaei hosts Mecca pact chiefs in Tehran

Munir returned to Tehran six days after Pezeshkian told him sanctions must be lifted before talks.

Occurred 26 Oct 2026

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Iran offers talks, lists 114 more ships

Pezeshkian spoke of dialogue authority after telling Asim Munir on 20 October that sanctions must be lifted before talks.

Occurred 2 Nov 2026

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Different Perspectives

Cross-border power traders

The France-Germany day-ahead spread flipped from a EUR 17.20 German premium on 1 August to a EUR 4.15 French premium on 3 August, the same day French curtailment peaked. They cannot yet attribute the flip to curtailment alone, since a like-for-like overnight comparison shows French nuclear output rising while wind fell and demand returned on the weekday step.

EDF

River-cooling limits took 7.6 GW, 12 per cent of its fleet, offline on 3 August, the highest curtailment since the heatwave began, with an easing forecast to 4.3 GW on 4 August and 3 GW after. It manages the cut as a recurring seasonal constraint, expecting it to lift with river temperature, not repair.

Gasunie

TTF, the Dutch hub it operates, drifted to roughly EUR 55 to 58 per MWh across the window, staying inside its recent range through both the German spark reversal and the French curtailment. It reads a flat hub price as evidence that neither event this window carried enough weight to move the fuel leg on its own.

German gas-fired generators

Record German solar of 18,761 MW on 2 August pushed the clean spark spread to minus 18.48 EUR/MWh, a loss-making day, before it returned to plus 16.20 on 3 August. They now price dispatch against post-solar residual load rather than wind alone, since the sign flipped inside 48 hours on unchanged fuel and carbon costs.

European Commission (DG Energy)

Its implementing-measures register logged transposition notices from only Portugal and Slovakia against Wednesday's Article 94 deadline for Directive (EU) 2024/1788, with 25 states silent. It expects the register to fill only gradually, since filing routinely lags legislating and any infringement track against non-notifying states runs on a slower clock than the deadline itself.

Spain's LNG terminal operators

Spain's 9,145 GWh terminal inventory is the largest single stock in the EU LNG network, an option value that can reroute cargoes wherever the winter strip pays best rather than a cavern gas obligation tied to a fixed date. That flexibility matters more as Germany's cavern shortfall pushes more of the winter security question onto import infrastructure.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.