Pakistan's Munir Phones Iran Again As Houthis Take Red Sea — SkimNews
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- Pakistan's Field Marshal Asim Munir held two phone calls with Iran's FM Abbas Araghchi this week — one announced, one not — while Deputy PM Ishaq Dar spoke separately with Saudi and Turkish counterparts, as an Iranian source said three to four such calls have occurred in the past ten days.
- Iranian-backed Houthis wounded 73 people and set oil facilities ablaze in four Saudi cities on Tuesday, then seized the coastal town of Mocha at dawn Thursday and by Friday controlled all of Yemen's Red Sea coast, including Mayyun Island at the heart of the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
- Brent crude topped $107 a barrel Friday on fears Saudi Arabia's two main export routes — the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb — could face simultaneous pressure, while satellite images showed a fire along the East-West pipeline, Riyadh's 7-million-barrel-per-day Hormuz bypass.
- Defence Minister Khawaja Asif warned the Pakistan-Saudi-Turkiye mutual defence pact "will definitely" be activated if fighting spills further into Saudi Arabia, yet the Foreign Office refused to confirm or deny reports Islamabad is passing Saudi warnings to Iran or reaching the Houthis through Tehran.
- Munir has travelled to Tehran four times since April, with the latest trip coming days after a phone call from US President Donald Trump asking Islamabad to lean on Tehran, per reporting from Al Jazeera.
- Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref and Supreme Leader adviser Mohammad Mokhber publicly celebrated Houthi territorial gains on X, with Mokhber crediting "Iran's might in the Strait of Hormuz" for what he called a tactical and strategic US defeat.
- The precedent cuts both ways: in April 2015, Pakistan's parliament unanimously rejected a Saudi request for troops against the Houthis, but in April 2025 it deployed forces to Saudi Arabia after Iranian strikes without directly joining the conflict.
Why it matters: Pakistan is now the only state with working diplomatic channels to both Riyadh and Tehran, and a key 2015 precedent shows its parliament has already once refused to fight the Houthis — meaning the moment Saudi Arabia formally invokes the Mecca pact, Islamabad faces a choice between honoring its defence treaty and preserving the mediator role Tehran relies on.
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