Pakistan, Aug. 26 -- Soon after Field Marshal Asim Munir held meetings with key Iranian leaders during a daylong diplomatic mission to Iran, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi spoke of "significant progress" on social media, hoping for the restoration of the Islamabad MoU. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was said to have set out his government's view candidly, while an official in his office promised results from the visit would emerge soon. The language is cautious, appropriately so. It nevertheless suggests that the diplomatic traffic between Washington and Tehran, which had all but stopped in public, has begun to move again through Islamabad.

Munir and Naqvi met the people who will have to authorise any Iranian decision. That matters....