U.S. officials said Pakistan quietly allowed Iranian military aircraft to park on its airfields while serving as a diplomatic conduit between Tehran and Washington, a move that could have shielded some of Iran's remaining military and aviation assets from American airstrikes. Days after President Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran in early April, Tehran sent multiple aircraft to Pakistan Air Force Base Nur Khan, just outside the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Among the aircraft was an Iranian Air Force RC-130 reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering plane. The report drew a sharp response from Lindsey Graham, who said the account of Pakistan-Iran cooperation was cause for a complete reevaluation of Pakistan's mediator role.
Pakistan moved quickly to reject the allegation. A senior Pakistan official said Nur Khan base is in the middle of a major city and that a large fleet of aircraft parked there could not be concealed from the public. On Tuesday, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Iranian aircraft now parked in the country arrived during the ceasefire period and had no link to any military contingency or preservation arrangement. It said the planes were there to help move diplomatic personnel and security teams if further peace talks were scheduled, and added that senior-level diplomatic exchanges had continued even though formal negotiations had not resumed.
The ministry said Pakistan has consistently acted as an impartial facilitator and has been transparent with all relevant parties. The account matters because it lands while Pakistan was presenting itself as a neutral channel between Washington and Tehran, and because the report suggests the conflict may have been used to protect assets that remained vulnerable after strikes.
The same update included a separate Afghanistan-related account involving an Iranian civilian aircraft. An Afghan civil aviation officer said a Mahan Air plane landed in Kabul before the war started, stayed parked after Iranian airspace was closed, and was later moved by Taliban civil aviation authorities to Herat Airport near the Iranian border for safety reasons. Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that any Iranian airplanes were in Afghanistan, saying, 'No, that's not true and Iran doesn't need to do that.'
For Pakistan, the dispute now sits at the intersection of diplomacy, airspace, and war damage control. The question is not whether Islamabad wants to keep mediating, but whether it can still do so without the aircraft on the tarmac becoming evidence in someone else's war.
