Pakistan and Iran are committed to de-escalating rising tensions, working together on security issues
Islamabad said Pakistan and Iran enjoy brotherly relations and the countries should make progress to resolve all issues through positive dialogue.
Islamabad: Pakistan and Iran on Friday agreed to the spirit of “mutual trust and cooperation” and the need for closer cooperation on security issues, as the two sides began picking up the thread of torn ties after their tit-for-tat rocket attacks on each other's territory.
Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani spoke to his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and expressed Pakistan's readiness to work with Iran on “all issues based on the spirit of mutual trust and cooperation,” the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said Business in a statement.
“He (Jilani) underlined the need for closer cooperation on security issues,” the statement said after the two ministers spoke by phone.
The positive development came after Pakistan carried out “precise military strikes” on what it called “terrorist hideouts” in Iran's Siestan-Balochistan province, killing nine people on Thursday. The attack was seen as retaliation for Iranian missile and drone strikes on Tuesday, which targeted two bases of the Sunni Baloch militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province.
Earlier, Jilani and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan discussed the “ongoing developments between Pakistan and Iran,” the Foreign Ministry said.
He told Fidan that the military strikes targeted terrorist camps in Iran and added that Pakistan has no interest or desire for escalation.
Officials from the foreign ministries of Iran and Pakistan also exchanged messages of goodwill, belying fears of escalation and showing that the row between the two neighbors had cooled sooner than it broke out two days ago.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch shared a message exchange between Additional Foreign Minister Rahim Hayat Qureshi and his Iranian counterpart Seyed Rasoul Mousavi on her X handle, saying: “Some positive exchanges.”
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He said Pakistan and Iran enjoy brotherly relations and the countries should move forward to resolve all issues through positive dialogue.
He said it is important to restore the trust that has always defined bilateral relations between the two countries. “Our common challenges, including terrorism, require coordinated action,” he added.
Mousavi said he believed the Iranian Foreign Ministry is the end point of the prevailing tensions between the two countries. “Leaders and senior officials of both countries know that only terrorists and enemies of both countries benefit from the existing tensions between the two neighboring countries,” he wrote on X in Persian.
(Only the headline was reworked by India.com staff. The copy is from an agency feed)