By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Iran and Pakistan agreed on Monday to form a high-level advisory committee to review their bilateral cooperation and challenges, as they sought to ease tensions after exchanging airstrikes along their shared border earlier this month.
The foreign ministers of the two countries, Hossein Amir Abdollahian of Iran and Jalil Abbas Jilani of Pakistan, held talks in Islamabad and announced the formation of the committee, which would meet alternately in the capitals of the two countries.
The meeting came less than two weeks after Iran and Pakistan traded tit-for-tat airstrikes in a border area where both sides have accused each other of harboring militants. The strikes, which killed at least 11 civilians, including six children, raised fears of a wider conflict in the volatile region amid the ongoing Israeli attacks on Palestine.
Both countries moved quickly to defuse the situation and said they would restore their ambassadors, who had been recalled after the airstrikes.
Abdollahian arrived in Islamabad on Monday morning, two days after gunmen killed nine Pakistani workers in a restive southeastern border area of Iran.
At a joint news conference, Abdollahian blamed “third countries” for supporting the militants along the border and said Iran and Pakistan would work together to ensure their security.
“There is no doubt that the terrorists located in the common border regions and areas of Iran and Pakistan are led and supported by third countries and they never favour any good action in line with the benefits of the Iranian and Pakistani governments and nations.”
Abdollahian said both Iran and Pakistan respected each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and vowed to prevent any terrorist activity from endangering their security.
“We consider Pakistan’s security as a brotherly friendly and neighborly country as the security of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the security of the whole region,” he said. “We are here, so in a loud voice we will tell all terrorists that Iran and Pakistan will not provide them with any opportunity to endanger our common security.”
Jilani said the two countries had agreed to adopt “collective and collaborative approaches” to confront the threat of terrorism and to expand their cooperation in various fields, especially in the political and security domains.
“We have agreed to station liaison officers of which an agreement was already in place at the earliest date,” Jilani said, adding that they would be deployed in Turbat and Zahedan, two border towns in Pakistan and Iran respectively.
“Respect for sovereignty and integrity remains the foundational step for cooperation,” the foreign minister said.
Iran and Pakistan share a 565-mile border that has long been a source of friction and violence. Pakistan has accused Iran of supporting separatist rebels in its southwestern province of Balochistan, which borders Iran. Iran has accused Pakistan of allowing Sunni extremist groups, such as Jaish al-Adl, to operate from its territory and carry out attacks inside Iran.
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