{"id":77063,"date":"2026-04-17T17:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/apr\/17\/pakistan-military-chief-asim-munir-unlikely-peacemaker-iran-war"},"modified":"2026-04-17T17:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:50:14","slug":"how-pakistans-powerful-military-chief-became-an-unlikely-peacemaker-in-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=77063","title":{"rendered":"How Pakistan\u2019s powerful military chief became an unlikely peacemaker in Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump\u2019s \u2018favourite field marshall\u2019 Asim Munir has been a key figure in securing the US-Iran ceasefire<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/live\/2026\/apr\/16\/middle-east-crisis-live-iran-war-news-us-trump-ceasefire-deal-lebanon-israel-oil-sanctions-latest-updates\"><strong>Middle East crisis \u2013 live updates<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Stepping off a plane on Wednesday evening, Field Marshal Asim Munir walked straight into the warm embrace of Iran\u2019s foreign minister and chief negotiator, Abbas Araghchi. Dressed in full army fatigues, the powerful chief of Pakistan\u2019s military cut an unusual figure as a beacon for peace. Yet that was just the role he intended to play.<\/p>\n<p>Munir had rushed to Tehran in what many saw as a last-ditch attempt to revive Pakistan\u2019s efforts to mediate an end to the war between the US and Iran. Four days earlier, the US vice-president, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/apr\/12\/jd-vance-says-no-deal-us-iran-pakistan-talks-islamabad\">JD Vance, left Islamabad<\/a>, after more than 21 hours of talks between the US and Iran failed to broker a deal.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/apr\/17\/pakistan-military-chief-asim-munir-unlikely-peacemaker-iran-war\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump\u2019s \u2018favourite field marshall\u2019 Asim Munir has been a key figure in securing the US-Iran ceasefireMiddle East crisis \u2013 live updatesStepping off a plane on Wednesday evening, Field Marshal Asim Munir walked straight into the warm embrace of Ir&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[415,448,212,60,61,45,47,3510,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-iran","category-middle-east-and-north-africa","category-pakistan","category-south-and-central-asia","category-us-foreign-policy","category-us-news","category-us-israel-war-on-iran","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77067,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77063\/revisions\/77067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}