Overview
- Senior Pakistani officials, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, traveled to Tehran to join public funeral rites for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and deliver condolences to Iran’s leadership.
- Pakistan’s delegation held meetings with Iranian officials and parliamentarians emphasizing closer bilateral, parliamentary and regional cooperation and pledging solidarity with the Iranian people.
- Iranian authorities named Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ acting commander following the reported death of his predecessor, and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf warned the United States against intervention in the Strait of Hormuz.
- U.S. media reported that American officials feared Israel had plotted attacks on senior Iranian negotiators, and U.S. Central Command confirmed added naval and Marine forces in the Middle East, including ships from the Boxer amphibious ready group and a Marine Expeditionary Unit.
- While these diplomatic and military moves unfold, Pakistan faces separate domestic stressors—PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa backed a July 4 traders’ strike over ended tax exemptions for former FATA/PATA and courts issued high-profile rulings on urea imports and a re‑polling order in Gilgit‑Baltistan—that could strain the government’s focus and public stability.