Balochistan Missile Attack 'Seriously Damaged Bilateral Ties': Pakistan's FM Tells Iranian Counterpart

Pakistan’s caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani has told his Iranian counterpart that the attack by Iran “seriously damaged” the diplomatic relations between the two countries.

This comes after Iranian missiles and drones on Tuesday night targeted two bases of the Balochi militant group Jaish al Adl in Pakistan’s border town of Panjgur in Balochistan province.

In a telephonic conversation on Wednesday with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Jilani stressed that the attack conducted by Iran inside the Pakistani territory was not only a serious breach of Islamabad’s sovereignty but also an egregious violation of international law.

Expressing Pakistan’s unreserved condemnation of the attack, the foreign minister added that the incident has caused serious damage to bilateral ties between Pakistan and Iran, the foreign office statement said.

The Foreign Minister added that Pakistan reserved the right to respond to this provocative act. Stressing that terrorism was a common threat to the region and required concerted and coordinated efforts to combat this menace, Jilani underlined that unilateral actions could seriously undermine regional peace and stability.

“No country in the region should tread this perilous path,” the minister told his Iranian counterpart. Traditional warm ties between the two neighbours nose-dived to the lowest ebb after the unprecedented attack by the Iranian forces in the country’s southwest.

Pakistan in retaliation expelled the Iranian ambassador while calling back his envoy from Tehran. Tuesday’s strikes were similar to attacks carried out by Tehran inside other neighbours, Iraq and Syria. Baghdad recalled its ambassador from Tehran after Iran’s state-backed media said it had hit an Israeli espionage centre.

The United States has condemned recent Iranian strikes in Pakistan, Iraq and Syria, which Tehran has claimed were carried out against “anti-Iranian terrorist groups.” “So we do condemn those strikes. We’ve seen Iran violate the sovereign borders of three of its neighbours in just the past couple of days,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a media briefing on Wednesday.

“I think it is a little rich for, on one hand, Iran to be the leading funder of terrorism in the region, the leading funder of instability in the region, and on the other hand, claimed that it needs to take these actions to counter terrorism,” he said.

(With agency inputs)