Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) and Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir arrived in Tehran on Friday evening as part of ongoing mediation efforts aimed at bringing the Iran-US war to a conclusion.
On arrival, the army chief was “received and warmly welcomed” by Iran’s Minister for Interior Eskandar Momeni, said the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
The military’s media wing added that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi was also present at the reception.
The CDF will discuss US-Iran talks, regional peace and other important issues during the visit, the sources said. He will also meet senior Iranian officials.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio commented about CDF Munir’s visit to Tehran, saying that the US was in “constant communication with him [and] the highest levels of our government are constantly talking to him”.
He also praised Pakistan for doing an “admirable job” trying to mediate a peace deal between Washington and Tehran.
“The primary interlocutor on this has been Pakistan and continues to be and they’ve done a, you know, I think an admirable job. And that’s what we continue to work through,” Fox News quoted Rubio as saying.
“Obviously, other countries … may have their own situation going on. We talk to all of them. But I would just say that the primary country we’ve been working with on all of this is Pakistan, and that remains the case,” he told reporters in Sweden.
Earlier in the day, Tasnim News Agency reported that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi held a meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to review proposals for resolving disputes, while on an official visit to Tehran.
The visit comes amid ongoing Pakistani efforts to mediate between the US and Iran, after plans for a second round of negotiations in Islamabad fell through.
Meanwhile, a Qatari negotiating team arrived in Tehran on Friday in coordination with United States to try to help secure a deal to end the war with Iran and resolve outstanding issues, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday.
Doha, which has worked as a mediator in the Gaza war and other areas of international tension, had till now distanced itself from playing a mediation role in the Iran war after it came under attack from Iranian missiles and drones during the latest conflict.
“A Qatari negotiation team is in Tehran on Friday,” the source said, adding that the team had travelled in coordination with the United ?States and was there to help “reach a final deal that would end the war and address outstanding issues with Iran.”
The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A shaky ceasefire is in place in the war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, but there has been no major breakthrough, with a US blockade of Iranian ports and Tehran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz complicating negotiations.
Iran said negotiations with the US are far from a breakthrough, with major gaps still separating the two sides.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said state media reports that talks are not “close” to producing an agreement and that it remains difficult to judge whether a deal could emerge “over weeks or months”.
He said the differences between Tehran and Washington remain “deep and significant”.
“We cannot necessarily say that we have reached a point where an agreement is close,” he said. “The focus of the negotiations is on ending the war. Details related to the nuclear issue are not being discussed at this stage.”
The war has wreaked havoc on the global economy, with the surge in oil prices stoking fears of rampant inflation. About a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas shipments travelled through the Strait of Hormuz before the war.
The US dollar was near its highest level in six weeks on Friday amid the uncertainty over the peace talks, while oil prices climbed as investors doubted the prospects of a breakthrough.