ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's political and military leaders on Friday announced plans to strengthen ties with Iran after airstrikes by Tehran and Islamabad this week killed at least 11 people and sharply soured fractious relations between the neighbors. Moved to ease tensions.
The decision appears to have been taken at a meeting of Pakistan's National Security Committee chaired by interim Prime Minister Anwarul Haq Kakkar, who returned home after cutting short his attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Pakistan's powerful army chief General Asim Munir attended the meeting.
Pakistan carries out retaliatory military strikes against Pakistani terrorists operating in Iran
The leaders discussed the situation after the Iranian airstrike and praised the “professional, coordinated and appropriate response” by Pakistan's military, according to a statement after the meeting.
According to the statement, the committee believes that existing communication channels between Pakistan and Iran “should be utilized to address each other's security concerns in the larger interest of peace and stability in the region. ” he emphasized.
Tensions are high between Iran and Pakistan, with each side accusing the other of harboring extremist groups.
Pakistan on Thursday carried out airstrikes on suspected militant hideouts in Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan provinces, killing at least nine people. The attack followed an Iranian attack on Pakistani territory on Tuesday that killed two children in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.
The unprecedented cross-border attack threatens to jeopardize relations between Tehran and Islamabad, which have long viewed each other with suspicion over extremist attacks, as well as ties between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. It also raised the threat of violence spreading across the Middle East, already destabilized by war. .
In Iran, the state-run IRNA news agency reported on Pakistan's efforts to ease tensions, saying Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian met with his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas Gilani.
According to IRNA, both countries hope to cooperate in the future and return each other's ambassadors to Tehran and Islamabad. The diplomatic mission returned home amid the escalating situation.
Pakistan's military was on high alert on Tuesday after an Iranian airstrike targeted a suspected hideout for Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni separatist group that has carried out multiple attacks in Iran. Ta.
Pakistan's retaliatory strikes on Thursday targeted alleged hideouts in Iran of Pakistani separatist groups called the Baluch Liberation Army and the Baluchistan Liberation Front. Iran said an airstrike killed three women, four children and two men near the town of Sarawan on the border with Pakistan.
The dramatic sudden escalation between Pakistan and Iran also came on the heels of Iranian airstrikes in Iraq and Syria late Monday. These airstrikes were carried out in response to a suicide bombing by Islamic State militants that killed more than 90 people in Iran in early January.
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Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long viewed each other with suspicion over extremist attacks, but have never carried out such attacks in the past.
Pakistan's Baluchistan province, as well as Iran's neighboring Sistan and Baluchistan provinces, have been facing a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades. Separatists in southwestern Pakistan often launch attacks against Pakistani security forces and Chinese interests in the country, and frequently sneak across the border to hide in Iran.
