The State Department is preparing to send more diplomats and other personnel that were evacuated from the Middle East in the early days of the war with Iran back to their posts as soon as this week, two officials familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Missions across the region have now been on ordered or authorized departure for nearly six months -- evacuation statuses that are not supposed to extend beyond 180 days, per State Department rules.

Still, the officials said that staffing levels at most impacted posts are not expected to return to pre-conflict levels in the near term, and many diplomats will be heading back to their assigned countries without their families due to elevated risks.

Around the time the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran was signed in June, the State Department quietly shifted some personnel evacuated earlier this year back to posts in the Middle East and was preparing to lift departure orders, but those plans were halted amid renewed escalation in July.

-ABC News' Shannon K. Kingston

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday defended Beijing's cooperation with Iran and vowed to "do everything necessary" to safeguard China's rights and interests, amid the building U.S. effort to isolate Tehran from its economic partners.

"China's cooperation with Iran is conducted within the framework of international law, thus should not be disrupted," Lin Jian, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told reporters. "China is closely following the developments, and will do everything necessary to firmly safeguard its rights and interests."

Lin's remarks came after President Donald Trump's administration announced that the U.S. was expanding secondary sanctions that the Treasury Department can impose on countries and entities that have business ties with Iran.

Lin reiterated China's position that unilateral sanctions fuel tensions, can disrupt the global economy and harm other countries. "Economic warfare and maximum pressure provide no solution," Lin said.

-ABC News' Othon Leyva

President Donald Trump posted to social media on Tuesday morning saying that the "failing" government in Iran "is not paying large segments of their military, while at the same time killing protesters, even when they are not protesting, at levels not seen before."

"It is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, and must be stopped, NOW," Trump wrote.

Pakistan army chief Asim Munir concluded a day-long visit to Iran, a spokesperson for the military in Islamabad said in a statement on Tuesday, "as part of Pakistan's diplomatic efforts to end the stalemate in the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict and explore ways for achieving enduring peace and permanent end to instability in the region."

Munir and Pakistani Interior Minister Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the statement said.

Discussions "focused on measures to prevent further escalation, reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and expedited termination of the conflict," the spokesperson said.

-ABC News' Habibullah Khan and Somayeh Malekian