There was “no doubt” that militants located in the border areas of Pakistan and Iran were “led and supported by third countries,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said while addressing a joint press conference alongside caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani in Islamabad on Monday.
Underscoring the brotherly relations between Pakistan and Iran, Foreign Minister Jilani reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to deepen and broaden the existing wide-ranging cooperation with Iran.
The Foreign Minister underlined the imperative for collective and collaborative approaches to confronting terrorism, which poses a common challenge to both Pakistan and Iran. He stressed that robust institutional mechanisms between the two countries on security cooperation should be fully leveraged. The two foreign ministers agreed to immediately appoint liaison officers in Turbat and Zahidan to further strengthen ongoing security and intelligence cooperation.
Noting that security and development are intrinsically interlinked, the two foreign ministers agreed to expand initiatives for economic and development cooperation, including the early operationalization of the joint border markets, to uplift the socio-economic status of the people of both countries, especially those residing in the border regions.
The two sides also decided to establish a joint coordination mechanism at the level of foreign ministers to oversee and steer progress on a common agenda for the prosperity and development of the two peoples.
Regular high-level engagements provide a leadership-driven impetus to the bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran. In this backdrop, the Foreign Minister renewed his invitation to the President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, to undertake a visit to Pakistan.