Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held an important meeting with Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi who reached Iran on Tuesday. According to the Iran’s official IRNA news agency, the two ministers discussed key diplomatic and bilateral issues.
However, both sides did not divulge further details regarding the meeting and the mediation efforts. Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi is visiting Tehran on Tuesday amid Islamabad’s mediation efforts to end the ongoing war between Iran and the USA.
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The agency, quoting a diplomatic source, said that Naqvi would hold talks with Iranian officials to discuss bilateral ties and issues of mutual interest. The visit comes a month after Iranian Interior Minister Eskander Momeni travelled to Islamabad for talks with his Pakistani counterpart.
Pakistan, alongside Qatar, is playing a key role in mediating to end the crisis and facilitating a memorandum of understanding between Iran and the USA in June to end the conflict. According to the reports from the international media, Iran has expressed its firm stance on its condition for reopening the Strait of Hormuz amid the Yemen’s Houthis launching attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Oman and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Mohsen Rezai, the newly appointed head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told China’s ambassador to Tehran that Washington must end its military campaign and release Iranian funds held abroad for a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Writing on X later, he insisted on an end to the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports as well as a region-wide ceasefire, including in Gaza and Lebanon.
“As long as the US does not change its behaviour and accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened,” Rezaei told Cong Peiwu, according to Iranian media.
Mohsin Naqvi also met the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and the two sides discussed closer political, economic, trade, cultural and security ties, according to the Iranian presidency.
