As Tehran refuses new talks with Washington, Pakistan faces a difficult test of its role as mediator and defence partner.
By Muhammad Munaeem Jamal | October 22, 2026
Field Marshal Asim Munir arrived in Tehran on October 20 with a difficult assignment. Pakistan wanted to revive negotiations between Iran and the United States. Iran’s leaders were willing to receive him, but they had little room for compromise.
President Masoud Pezeshkian met the Pakistani military chief. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf delivered the harder message: Washington would have to meet Iran’s seven conditions before serious negotiations could resume.
Tehran wanted the American blockade of its ports lifted. It also demanded relief from oil sanctions and an end to hostilities on regional fronts.
There was another demand. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said that Iran would not transfer its enriched nuclear material abroad.
The Reuters report on the Tehran meetings made clear how far apart the two sides remained.
Munir could report Iran’s position to Washington. He could not change the American government’s demands.
For Islamabad, that was only part of the problem.
Pakistan now belongs to a three-country defence arrangement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Saudi Arabia is facing attacks from the Houthis in Yemen, a movement supported by Iran.
Pakistan wants Tehran to accept its diplomatic efforts while assuring Riyadh that it can rely on Pakistani military support.
Those responsibilities may eventually collide.
Pakistan has already helped negotiate one failed agreement
The latest Iranian refusal makes more sense when viewed against the June peace initiative.
On June 18, Pakistan helped broker the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the United States. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed it in his capacity as mediator, alongside the American and Iranian presidents.
The agreement was intended to ease the conflict. An important early provision linked reopening the Strait of Hormuz to the lifting of the American naval blockade.
For Pakistan, this was a substantial diplomatic achievement.
Few countries had maintained working relationships with both governments during the fighting. Islamabad had shown that it could bring the parties to an agreement.
But the memorandum did not produce lasting peace.
Fighting resumed weeks later, and disagreements over implementation damaged the diplomatic process.
During Munir’s October visit, Iranian officials referred to Washington’s conduct after the earlier understanding as a reason for their continuing distrust.
The sequence exposes a weakness in Pakistan’s mediation effort.
Islamabad can provide a channel for communication. It may help the parties identify a temporary compromise. It cannot guarantee that either government will honour an agreement when political and military calculations change.
Iran’s latest conditions are therefore not simply a negotiating tactic. They also reflect the collapse of confidence following the June arrangement.
Pakistan must now try to rebuild a process that has already failed once.
The Makkah agreement has changed Pakistan’s obligations
On August 7, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement.
According to the official statement published by Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an armed attack against one of the three countries will be regarded as an attack against all.
That is a serious undertaking.
Pakistan has maintained military cooperation with Saudi Arabia for decades. Pakistani personnel have provided training and other defence support in the kingdom. The August agreement places that relationship within a broader collective-security arrangement involving Turkey.
It does not follow, however, that every attack on Saudi Arabia automatically requires Pakistan to bomb the attackers.
A collective-defence commitment establishes a political and security obligation. The response still depends on the agreement’s provisions and decisions made by the participating governments.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has described the pact as defensive and said it is not directed against another country.
On October 13, President Asif Ali Zardari repeated that position during a meeting with retired Lieutenant General Nauman Mahmood, who was appointed to lead the alliance’s secretariat in Riyadh.
The government has therefore presented the agreement as a means of deterring aggression rather than preparing for a regional war.
The distinction will matter if Saudi Arabia requests additional military assistance following another Houthi attack.
Pakistan might be asked to provide air-defence equipment or technical support. It could face requests for personnel or other forms of military assistance.
Those possibilities are not equivalent.
Defending Saudi territory against incoming missiles involves different military and political risks from conducting offensive operations inside Yemen.
The public statements on the pact do not establish that Pakistan must undertake the latter.
This is where diplomacy meets an uncomfortable practical question: who decides what Pakistan’s collective-defence promise requires in a particular crisis?
The Yemen question has returned
Pakistan faced a comparable dilemma in 2015.
Saudi Arabia was conducting military operations against the Houthis and wanted support from Pakistan.
Parliament debated the request. On April 10, it adopted a resolution favouring neutrality in the Yemen conflict while expressing support for Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity.
The decision disappointed Riyadh but did not destroy the bilateral defence relationship.
Pakistan had drawn a distinction between protecting Saudi Arabia and joining the war in Yemen.
The new Makkah agreement makes that distinction harder to maintain, although it does not necessarily erase it.
In 2015, Pakistan was responding to a request for assistance from an established partner. In 2026, it has entered a formal collective-defence arrangement with two partners.
The government must now explain how the earlier principle of avoiding direct involvement in Yemen fits its new commitments.
I examined the parliamentary and constitutional issues in my earlier article, Pakistan’s Saudi Defence Commitments: Does Parliament Still Have a Say?
The October visit to Tehran raises a related but separate question.
Can Pakistan assure Iran that it is seeking a negotiated settlement while participating in military preparations intended to protect Saudi Arabia from Iran-backed attacks?
There is no automatic contradiction. Countries often maintain defence relationships while conducting diplomacy with their partners’ adversaries.
The difficulty arises when the obligations of one relationship begin to affect decisions in the other.
Iran needs Pakistan’s diplomatic channel
Munir’s reception in Tehran suggests that Iran still considers Pakistan a useful intermediary.
The two countries share a border. Their governments have maintained relations despite security disputes and differences over regional politics.
Pakistan also has access to Washington and longstanding ties with Saudi Arabia.
Those connections give Islamabad an opportunity to convey positions that might otherwise be difficult to communicate.
Iran does not have to agree with Pakistan’s defence policy to value that channel.
Nor should disagreement with Tehran’s negotiating conditions be interpreted as the failure of Pakistani diplomacy.
A mediator is not responsible for producing concessions that neither party is prepared to make.
Still, the new Saudi defence arrangement creates a question Iran may reasonably ask.
If hostilities expand, how much freedom will Pakistan retain to pursue an independent diplomatic position?
The answer will depend less on declarations of friendship than on Islamabad’s actions during a crisis.
An additional complication concerns the Houthis themselves.
Iran has supported the movement, but that support does not establish direct Iranian control over every Houthi military operation. The movement has its own leadership and political objectives.
Pakistan can ask Tehran to use its influence. It cannot assume that an Iranian undertaking would guarantee an end to attacks from Yemen.
The limits of Iranian influence may become as important as the limits of Pakistani mediation.
Turkey gives the agreement another dimension
Turkey’s participation deserves closer examination.
The Makkah pact is not merely an extension of the old Pakistan-Saudi military relationship. It brings together three states with different military capabilities and foreign-policy interests.
Turkey has a developed defence industry and substantial military experience. Saudi Arabia provides a major financial and strategic centre for the arrangement. Pakistan contributes an established security relationship with Riyadh and its own military capabilities.
Those differences may help the members distribute responsibilities.
On October 22, Associated Press reported that Turkey had submitted the agreement for parliamentary ratification. The report also described plans for collective defence coordination and a mechanism to oversee implementation.
The institutional arrangements are important because collective defence does not necessarily mean identical military contributions from every member.
Turkey might provide one form of assistance while Pakistan provides another. The actual division of responsibilities would depend on decisions taken through the agreement’s machinery.
It is too early to say how the three governments would respond to a major escalation involving the Houthis.
Yet the pact gives Pakistan a forum for discussing its obligations rather than leaving every request for assistance to bilateral pressure.
That opportunity will be useful only if Islamabad defines its own limits.
Pakistan cannot separate Gulf security from its economy
The consequences of a regional war would not end with military deployments.
Pakistan depends heavily on imported energy. Disruption around the Strait of Hormuz can affect oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, with consequences for import costs.
Higher international energy prices place pressure on the country’s foreign-exchange requirements.
Consumers may eventually face more expensive petrol. Businesses that depend on transport and imported fuel can also experience rising costs.
The effect is not automatic or uniform. Exchange rates, taxes and government pricing decisions influence how international changes reach Pakistani households.
But Pakistan remains exposed.
I discussed the risk in Pakistan’s Next Inflation Shock Could Begin in the Middle East.
For a country with limited financial room, preventing a wider conflict is not simply a diplomatic ambition. It is also an economic interest.
Pakistan could gain influence through its mediation efforts and security relationships. The gains would mean less if a prolonged Gulf conflict damaged the economy and raised household costs.
That concern should shape decisions about military involvement.
A useful mediator needs freedom to say no
The strongest argument for Pakistan’s present diplomacy is that Islamabad has kept communication open when negotiations have repeatedly broken down.
The failed June memorandum should not obscure that achievement.
Munir’s October meetings demonstrate continued access to Iran’s senior leadership. Pakistan’s relations with Washington provide another diplomatic route.
But access alone is insufficient.
An effective mediator must also retain the freedom to disagree with the governments it is trying to bring together.
Pakistan may need to tell Iran that its conditions are unacceptable to Washington. It may need to tell the United States that further military pressure could undermine negotiations.
And if Saudi Arabia requests assistance that would draw Pakistani forces into offensive operations in Yemen, Islamabad may have to distinguish between its obligation to defend a partner and its interest in avoiding another war.
These decisions will not always please every government.
The Makkah agreement has made Pakistan’s regional role more important. It has also made its choices more difficult.
The government should clarify how decisions about military assistance will be made, what forms of support fall within its defensive commitments, and when wider political approval would be required.
There is a precedent for such scrutiny. Parliament’s 2015 debate took place before Pakistan committed forces to the Yemen war.
Eleven years later, the country has accepted a broader security promise while acting as a mediator in an even more dangerous regional conflict.
The next test may arrive not through a formal declaration of war, but through a Saudi request for assistance after another missile attack.
Pakistan will then have to decide how far its defence promise extends.
Tehran will be watching that decision. So will Washington.
Pakistanis deserve to know the answer before their government is forced to give one.