Iran Rules Out US Talks Until Demands Met After Munir's Tehran Meetings With Pezeshkian, Ghalibaf

TEHRAN: Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces and Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, concluded a day of high-level talks in Tehran on Tuesday after Iranian leaders told him there would be no negotiations with Washington until Tehran's demands are met, underscoring the hardening Iranian stance that Pakistan's mediation efforts now face.

Main News Report

• Who met whom: During his brief, several-hour visit, Munir held talks with President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, before departing Tehran on Tuesday evening, according to IRNA.
• Iran's message: Iranian media reported that Tehran told the Pakistani army chief there would be no talks with Washington until its demands are fulfilled.
• The Hormuz conditions: Ghalibaf told Munir that Washington cannot regain Tehran's trust until it meets the seven conditions Iran set last month for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including an end to the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, the lifting of sanctions on oil exports and an end to hostilities on all regional fronts.
• Nuclear red line: Rezaei told Munir that all of Iran's enriched nuclear materials would remain inside the country and that Tehran would not negotiate until its conditions are met, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
• Pakistan's delegation: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi accompanied Munir to the meeting with President Pezeshkian, IRNA reported.
• No Pakistani readout yet: There was no immediate comment from the Pakistani side on the visit, which was Munir's fifth since the June agreement.

Background Context

Pakistan has positioned itself as the key intermediary between Washington and Tehran since the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran in late February, killing senior commanders and triggering a conflict that effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to shipping. Pakistan-brokered mediation produced an interim peace deal — the Islamabad Memorandum — signed in June, but the agreement unravelled within weeks as fighting resumed, and diplomats have struggled since to revive it.

The United States has not attacked Iran since September, but Iranian officials have repeatedly warned that renewed fighting remains possible, and the waterway that carried around a fifth of the world's oil and gas before the war has become the central bargaining chip. Iran's seven conditions for reopening the strait, presented last month, tie free navigation to the lifting of the US counter-blockade and sanctions.

Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Munir's talks would relate to the stalled negotiations but would mainly focus on bilateral relations and strengthening cooperation.

Reactions and Statements

• Iran's parliament speaker: Ghalibaf's insistence on the seven Hormuz conditions, carried in the Iranian readout of his meeting with Munir, was the bluntest public restatement yet that Tehran links any diplomatic progress to concrete American concessions.
• Iran's security chief: Rezaei's pledge that enriched nuclear material will stay in Iran echoes the position of Iran's leadership that near-weapons-grade uranium must not be shipped abroad — the same enrichment issue US Vice President JD Vance has cited, saying Iran must make a "meaningful" reduction in enrichment capacity to end the eight-month war.
• Qatar's mediators: Separately, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said on Tuesday that negotiations between Iran and the US are continuing through back channels and that the lack of public information should not be read as a lack of progress, with Iran's own seven-day proposal to end the war still on the table awaiting a US response.

Why This News Matters

For Pakistan, Tuesday's meetings were a direct test of its leverage as a mediator. Islamabad has invested unusual diplomatic capital in the US-Iran file — the army chief's fifth Tehran visit, the deputy prime minister's shuttle diplomacy and the president's office engagements — precisely because a collapse back into open warfare would hammer Pakistan's economy through oil prices and the Hormuz trade route.

Iran's answer to its most important interlocutor — no talks until Washington moves first — suggests Pakistan's mediation has, for now, run into Tehran's wall of preconditions rather than Washington's. It also puts the ball firmly in the American court at a moment when back-channel mediation is the only live channel left.

Future Developments

• Whether Washington responds to Iran's seven-day proposal and the seven Hormuz conditions, after the Qatar-mediated exchanges al-Ansari described.
• Any statement from Pakistan's side — ISPR or the Foreign Office — on what Munir carried back from Tehran.
• Whether the seven conditions get formally tabled in the back-channel talks as the baseline for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
• The risk of renewed strikes if neither side moves, with Iran warning that a US refusal could trigger fresh escalation in the waterway.

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