Pak, Iran to form joint working group on border issues

Islamabad: Iran and Pakistan will form a joint working group to look after border management, including security, trade and travel issues between the two countries, the Iranian interior minister has said.

Speaking at the conclusion of a one-day visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Monday, Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told Iranian state-run IRNA that both sides were also seeking to increase engagement on economic relations.

“Iran-Pakistan relations, especially in the economic field, should be stronger and broader,” Vahidi said.The Iranian diplomat was accompanied by Iran’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, Commander of the Iranian Border Guards, Brigadier General Ahmad Ali Goudarzi, and Iranian military attache Colonel Mostafa Ghanbarpour.

Pakistan and Iran share a border of roughly 750km (466 miles) located in Pakistan’s southwest and Iran’s southeast. The border has been the site of sporadic skirmishes, with border patrols on both sides targeted. In 2018, at least 14 Iranian security personnel, including intelligence officials belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were abducted along the border, increasing tension between the two countries.

Armed group Jaish al-Adl, affiliated with alQaeda, claimed responsibility for those abductions. Five of those soldiers were released the same year.v “[Pakistani PM Khan] stressed early completion and operationalisation of the border sustenance markets, for economic uplift of the people living on both sides of the border,” the statement said. —Agencies