US has to take practical steps to implement MoU: Rezaei

The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding as the Centerpiece

The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding is the load-bearing phrase in this meeting, and Rezaei's choice to anchor his remarks around it is deliberate. By telling Munir that Washington must "change its behavior and take practical steps to implement" the MoU, the SNSC secretary is signaling that Iran no longer treats the document as a sealed deal — it is now a public benchmark against which US conduct will be measured. The MoU, signed in the Pakistani capital earlier this year as part of de-escalation efforts after a round of US-Iran strikes, has been a recurring reference point in Iranian state media coverage throughout August, and Rezaei's language matches a pattern in which Tehran uses bilateral audiences to internationalize its demands on Washington. The framing also conveniently shifts the onus onto the US: rather than negotiating new terms, Iran is demanding delivery on terms already agreed.

This positioning matters because it implies a sequencing problem. If Tehran is publicly insisting on implementation rather than renegotiation, it is reserving the right to judge compliance — and to retaliate against non-compliance — through a familiar lens of "practical steps." The Mehr dispatch makes no mention of specific deadlines, but the very existence of a public scorecard is itself a pressure tool, particularly as the MoU's provisions touch on nuclear constraints, sanctions relief pathways, and regional de-escalation that have historically been sticking points.

Strait of Hormuz and Rezaei's Hard Line

Rezaei's emphasis on "Iran's security control over the Strait of Hormuz" is the second substantive signal in the readout. This is not boilerplate Iranian rhetoric — the chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of global oil flows has been a recurring flashpoint in 2026, with Iranian parliament approving service charges for Hormuz transit and IRGC-linked statements about seizing or fining violating vessels appearing on the same Mehr news page as this article. By raising Hormuz control directly with a foreign army chief, Rezaei is performing two acts at once: reassuring a key neighbor that Iran intends to remain the security guarantor of the waterway, and reminding outside powers — implicitly the US Navy's Fifth Fleet — that any disruption calculus runs through Tehran.

The "security control" formulation is also a soft warning. It pre-emptively rejects any external security architecture for the strait that does not center Iran, and it provides political cover for the kind of selective enforcement that has periodically roiled tanker traffic in recent months. For Pakistan, which has its own energy import dependence on Gulf routes, the assurance has practical value even if both sides understand it is also a lever.

The Munir Channel and a Shared Border

Munir's contribution to the meeting was shorter but pointed: he "stressed the two countries' brotherly ties and Islamabad's efforts to strengthen security along their shared border." This is the diplomatic equivalent of a status report, and it is notable for what it does not contain — there is no mention of the Balochistan-based militant activity that has historically driven Iran-Pakistan friction, and no reference to recent cross-border incidents. That omission, in a state-media readout, is itself a message: the bilateral channel is currently being used to project stability rather than to manage an active crisis.

The fact that Munir is the visitor and the host is the SNSC secretary — not the foreign minister or the president — underscores that this is a security-track engagement rather than a trade or political one. It also positions Pakistan's army chief as a continuing interlocutor at a moment when Iran's security messaging has become unusually assertive across multiple fronts, from Hormuz to the IRGC's parallel statements on US sanctions.