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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, has held a rare and extended meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, the military said on Thursday, a high-level engagement that underscores Islamabad’s deepening security and economic dialogue with Washington.

This was the first time in many years that a Pakistani army chief was hosted by a sitting US president at the White House, highlighting Washington’s renewed interest in maintaining influence in South Asia as regional tensions flare.

According to a statement from Pakistan’s military, Munir met Trump at a luncheon in the Cabinet Room on Wednesday before visiting the Oval Office, accompanied by Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Lt Gen Asim Malik, who is also currently serving as the dire­ctor general of the country’s premier intelligence agency, the ISI. On the US side, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Representative for Middle Eastern Affairs Steve Witkoff joined the discussions.

During the meeting, Munir conveyed Pakistan’s “deep appreciation” for Trump’s role in brokering a ceasefire that ended last month’s flare-up between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India — the most intense fighting between the neighbors in decades. From May 7-10, the two militaries exchanged drones, missiles and artillery fire before Trump announced a truce.

“During the meeting, the Chief of Army Staff conveyed the deep appreciation of the Government and people of Pakistan for President Trump’s constructive and result-oriented role in facilitating a ceasefire between Pakistan and India in the recent regional crisis,” the military statement said.

The army chief also acknowledged President Trump’s “statesmanship and his ability to comprehend and address the multifaceted challenges faced by the global community.”

The military statement added that Trump praised Pakistan’s counter-terrorism cooperation and lauded Munir’s “leadership and decisiveness” during a period of complex security challenges, including the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict.

The meeting is being widely seen as a rare direct engagement that signals a cautious thaw in ties between the two countries under Trump’s second presidency.

Pakistan’s powerful military plays a central role in shaping the country’s foreign and security policies. Direct outreach to its top commander reflects Washington’s effort to manage key regional security issues, including the aftermath of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, tensions between Pakistan and India after their deadly military exchanges last month, and the broader fallout of the escalating Israel-Iran confrontation.

Security analysts say the meeting also reflects Washington’s renewed effort to maintain its influence in a region where Beijing’s footprint is steadily expanding through infrastructure investment and defense ties with Islamabad.

ECONOMIC TIES

Trump and Munir also discussed expanding cooperation in trade, economic development, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, energy and emerging technologies — areas traditionally handled by civilian governments.

Analysts note that in recent years, Pakistan’s powerful army, known for its dominance in politics, has steadily expanded its influence beyond security and politics into economic and financial management, especially through bodies such as the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) — a civil-military platform that oversees major economic initiatives and foreign investment deals. Munir’s direct discussions on economic and technological partnerships with the US president are being seen by independent observers as further evidence of the military’s outsized role in shaping Pakistan’s economic agenda.

Trump told reporters after the talks he was “honored” to host Munir and confirmed that the Iran-Israel crisis had been discussed. He also said he wanted to thank the Pakistani commander for preventing the standoff with India from escalating further.

Munir, who has recently been elevated to Field Marshal in recognition of what the government called his “strategic brilliance” during the India clashes in May, extended an invitation for Trump to visit Pakistan, according to the statement. The White House has not commented on whether the president has accepted the invitation.

The meeting, initially scheduled for one hour but running for over two, took place amid renewed fears that fighting between Israel and Iran, now well into its seventh day, could spill over and destabilize the wider region, including Pakistan’s western border with Iran.

Pakistan has repeatedly called for de-escalation and a peaceful resolution to the crisis, while maintaining close ties with Tehran and Gulf allies, and expressing sympathy for the Palestinian cause amid an ongoing Israeli military offensive in the besieged enclave.

“Well, they [Pakistan] know Iran very well, better than most, and they’re not happy about anything [Iran-Israel conflict],” Trump said in response to a question by a reporter after his meeting with Munir on whether Iran came up in the discussions.

“It’s not that they’re better with Israel. They [Pakistan] know them both actually, but they probably, maybe, know Iran better, but they [Pakistan] see what’s going on. And he [Field Marshal General Asim Munir] agreed with me.”

Trump did not specify what the Pakistani general had agreed with him on.

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of Pakistani pilgrims, students and workers have finally made it back home from Iran this week, telling stories of tense roads, sleepless nights and missiles flashing overhead as the conflict between Israel and Iran pushes the region to the brink of wider war.

A week of Israeli air and missile strikes against its major rival that started on June 13 has wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military command, damaged its nuclear capabilities and killed hundreds of people, while Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed two dozen civilians in Israel.

In the immediate aftermath of Friday’s attacks, Iran closed its airspace to commercial traffic, leaving hundreds of expats, including Pakistani pilgrims, students and workers, stranded. 

For Hassan Raza, a 22-year-old student at Al-Mustafa International University in Qom, the abrupt closure of the skies turned an ordinary day into a marathon journey through the heart of a country on edge.

“When Israel attacked Iran on 13th June, I was at Tehran International Airport, and after a few moments, all flights were canceled and we entered Pakistan from the border of Rimdan by road,” Raza told Arab News on Wednesday in a telephone interview. 

Pakistan and Iran share a 909-kilometer (565-mile) border, which separates Balochistan from the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan. Forced to abandon plane tickets, many stranded Pakistanis like Raza pooled resources to travel by bus, heading south from Tehran toward the remote border at Rimdan.

The bus route took Raza and his group past Natanz, a name known worldwide for being the site of Iran’s main uranium enrichment facilities and one of the prime targets of repeated Israeli attacks since Friday.

“We passed by Natanz, which is a nuclear power plant in Iran and has been targeted multiple times by Israel,” Raza said. 

As they continued, they witnessed firsthand the flashes and arcs of missiles fired in retaliation.

“We saw that many missiles were launched from Iran toward Israel and made videos of this as well,” he said. “After 20 to 22 hours, we reached the Rimdan border crossing and entered Pakistan.”

Along the road journey, Raza added, despite the echo of distant missile exchanges, daily life seemed remarkably calm.

“JUST IN TIME”

Syed Nadeem Abbas Shirazi, a pilgrim from Mandi Bahauddin in Punjab province, had arrived in Mashhad, a sacred city for Shiite Muslims, to visit holy shrines when the attack threw the region into uncertainty.

“When Iran was attacked, I was in Mashhad. We went out and interacted with the local people, and they showed no signs of fear. In fact, they were very emotional,” Shirazi said.

“They were chanting slogans against Israel and the United States, and many said they had no fear of martyrdom, they desired it,” he added. 

As the situation remained tense, Shirazi and his group decided to return by road rather than wait for flights to resume.

“From Mashhad, we boarded a bus at 1pm and reached Chabahar at noon the next day,” he said. 

The group then hired a taxi for the final stretch to the Pakistan border near Gwadar.

For others, the trip home meant navigating jam-packed highways and rationed fuel in a country bracing for more strikes. 

Syed Ali Hassan, an electrician from Layyah who worked near Tehran, said he felt the atmosphere change instantly when the attacks began on Friday.

“People were not openly panicking, but you could feel the fear in the air, everyone seemed to be preparing for the worst,” Hassan said.

Amid the quiet fear, Hassan and a handful of other Pakistanis found a bus heading west toward the Taftan border in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

“The journey wasn’t easy. Highways were packed with vehicles, fuel stations had long lines, and we traveled all night with brief stops, mostly in silence,” he said. 

Some passengers were worried about possible airstrikes or roadblocks, but the group managed to reach the border without incident.

At Taftan, exhausted and emotionally drained, many Pakistanis breathed a sigh of relief as they stepped back onto home ground.

“It felt like we had made it out just in time,” Hassan said.