Asif: Tehran Huddle Was Not My Mandate
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told the National Assembly on Thursday that the recent Tehran huddle was not the defence ministry’s mandate. His remarks answered Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who had questioned why the defence minister was absent from the meeting in Tehran.
The Tehran huddle brought together officials from member countries of the Makkah Defence Alliance. Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman attended, along with Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei joined them in Tehran.
The meeting agreed to continue dialogue to strengthen cooperation among the four regional nations, including in the areas of regional peace and security. That outcome, rather than any signed pact, is what the participants announced.
Tehran huddle: what Fazl said in the House
Fazl raised the matter during his address in the National Assembly on Wednesday. He said a defence pact was taking shape in Iran, while a meeting was under way there, and the defence minister was sitting in the House. His remarks drew laughter and desk thumping from members.
Fazl also pointed to the presence of Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi at the Tehran meeting. He asked whether the interior minister was required there as well. Then, taking a jibe at Asif, he repeated a phrase the defence minister had once used against the PTI: “koi sharam hoti hai, koi haya hoti hai”, meaning have some shame, show some modesty. He broke into laughter in the middle of the remark.
The exchange was political theatre, but it raised a real question about who speaks for Pakistan at such meetings. Asif’s reply on Thursday addressed that question directly. He said no defence pact was taking shape in Tehran, nor was the discussion focused on Pakistan’s defence or any related matter.
Asif’s reply: peace role, not a defence pact
Asif said Field Marshal Munir had assumed a role for Pakistan following last year’s military conflict with India. That role, he said, was one of peace and dialogue, so that peace is established in the region. The Chief of Defence Forces had gone to Tehran as a messenger of peace, Asif said, and had paved the ground for the huddle.
Asif added that the Tehran visit last week, during which the Chief of Defence Forces proposed the meeting, was the step that led to the huddle. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei had earlier said the proposal came from the Pakistani side during that visit.
On his own absence, Asif was plain. Pakistan had signed two defence pacts since the conflict with India, he noted: the Makkah defence pact and the Badr Memorandum of Understanding. He was involved in those pacts because he is the defence minister, he explained. The Tehran meeting, by contrast, was not the defence ministry’s mandate. “This was the situation, and I was not needed in Tehran,” he told the House.
That distinction is the heart of the government’s position. Signed defence pacts pass through the defence minister. A dialogue meeting aimed at regional peace, led by the Chief of Defence Forces, does not.
Feature Pakistan has covered the Tehran track in detail. The joint meeting led by Field Marshal Munir in Tehran brought the four sides together, while Iran’s president stressed regional unity in the same round of talks. Earlier, Asif reported progress in Tehran talks on the diplomatic track, and Fazl set out his own position on the charter of democracy and KP rule in a separate debate.
What the huddle means for the region
The meeting matters because it brought four countries with different interests into one room at a tense moment. The decision to keep talking, rather than to announce a pact, suggests the participants want a channel open before they commit to anything formal.
For Pakistan, a peace-and-dialogue role for its military chief, as Asif described it, is a way to stay relevant in regional talks without signing new commitments.
