Islamabad/Washington: Pakistan allegedly allowed Iran to park military aircraft at its air bases during the Middle East conflict, even while playing the role of a mediator between Washington and Tehran.
The aircraft were parked at Pakistani air bases to shield them from American and Israeli airstrikes. Tehran also parked some of its civilian aircraft in neighbouring Afghanistan, though it was not clear if military planes were among those flights, CBS News reported, quoting sources.
Tehran moved several of its key defence assets to Pakistan Air Force Base in Nur Khan, located just outside Rawalpindi, the sources said. The strategically important military installation, located near Islamabad, provided a secure shelter for Iran to protect its military and aviation assets while Pakistan officially mediated truce efforts between Tehran and Washington.
An Iranian Air Force RC-130, a reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering variant of the Lockheed-produced C-130 Hercules tactical transport aircraft, was among the aircraft sent to Pakistan, the report said.
The aircraft were sent to Nur Khan base days after president Trump announced the ceasefire with Iran in early April, officials told CBS.
The movement of civilian and military assets to Afghanistan and Pakistan, respectively, was part of Tehran’s attempt to insulate some of its remaining military and aviation assets from potential American and Israeli strikes, even as officials publicly served as brokers for de-escalation, the US believes.
US lawmakers questioning Islamabad’s neutrality in the mediation process after the report. Taking to X, Lindsey Graham, a senior Republican senator and a close ally of US president Donald Trump, called for a reassessment of Pakistan’s diplomatic role in the crisis.
“If this reporting is accurate, it would require a complete re-evaluation of the role Pakistan is playing as mediator between Iran, the United States and other parties,” he wrote in a post, as reported by NDTV.
“Given some of the prior statements by Pakistani defence officials towards Israel, I would not be shocked if this were true,” Graham added.
The claims about the the Nur Khan Air Base were rejected by a top Pakistani official. He told CBS that such claims were implausible because the facility is located in a densely populated area.
“Nur Khan base is right in the heart of [the] city, a large fleet of aircrafts parked there can’t be hidden from [the] public eye,” they said.
Afghanistan accepted that an Iranian civilian aircraft belonging to Mahan Air was parked at Kabul airport for a while during the war. An Afghan civil aviation official told the American publication that Iranian civilian aircraft landed in Kabul shortly before the war started and remained parked there for a while because the Iranian airspace was closed amid conflict.
The same aircraft was later shifted to Herat airport near the Iranian border for safety reasons after Pakistan launched attacks on Kabul in March.
The Mahan Air plane was the only Iranian aircraft present in the country, the Afghan official added.
Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, also denied the presence of any Iranian aeroplanes in Afghanistan. “No, that’s not true and Iran doesn’t need to do that,” he said in a statement to CBS.
Earlier, a Financial Times report suggested that while Pakistan tried to project itself as a peacemaker, it was the White House that pushed Islamabad to broker a temporary ceasefire with Iran. The report suggested that Islamabad was not a neutral broker but rather a convenient channel for the US to push the temporary ceasefire deal.
Israel, America’s biggest Middle Eastern ally, has also questioned Islamabad’s role in the peace process, expressing deep concern over growing links between Hamas and Pakistan-based terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba.
