Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson says Asim Munir was neither a positive nor a negative message; Pakistan and some other countries are trying to reduce tensions, IRNA reports

Intermediary diplomacy of this kind, with third states offering to shuttle messages between Washington and Tehran, has a long history in US-Iran standoffs and has rarely produced movement on its own; the pattern in past episodes is that back-channel traffic signals intent to de-escalate only when the principal actors echo it, not when mediators announce it. Tehran's framing here is the more telling element: conditioning its next steps on the continuation of sanctions and the declared blockade keeps the response tied to the maximum-pressure file, and characterising the blockade as aggression is the standard rhetorical precursor episodes of this kind have used before any retaliatory or defensive escalation. The reference to Pakistan's army chief by name is unusual and suggests Islamabad is being floated as a conduit, a role smaller regional states have periodically played without durable results. What is worth watching is whether the language shifts from 'defense and resistance' toward any reference to talks or conditions for engagement, and whether other channels, Omani, Qatari or European, show parallel activity. For crude, the transmission channel in such episodes has run through risk premia on Gulf transit rather than physical flows, unless rhetoric is followed by actual interference with shipping or insurance repricing. As a spokesperson statement rather than a leadership decision, this is positioning, not action.