26-05-2025
Iranian president calls for cooperation with Pakistan to combat militant activity on shared border
ISLAMABAD: Islamabad and Tehran should increase cooperation to combat militant activity on their shared border, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday during a televised news conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Sharif arrived in Iran on Monday after a visit to Istanbul as part of a regional diplomacy tour that will also include trips to Azerbaijan and Tajikistan.
Relations between Iran and Pakistan have been strained in recent years, with both sides accusing each other of not doing enough to stamp out militants allegedly sheltering across their shared border.
'We believe that the joint borders between Iran and Pakistan should be free from any insecurity and free from the presence and activity of terrorist and criminal groups,' Pezeshkian said during a joint press conference with Sharif.
'In this regard, we believe we need to promote cooperation at the border areas to fight against those who are trying to create trouble.'
President of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian (R) and Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif shake hands after a joint press statement, at Sa'dabad Palace in Tehran on May 26, 2025. (PMO)
Last year, Iran launched strikes inside Pakistan's border, saying it had destroyed two bases of Jaish al Adl, a Pakistan-based group that Tehran accuses of attacking Iranian security forces. Pakistan launched strikes on separatist militants inside Iran in response, saying it hit bases of the separatist Baloch Liberation Front and Baloch Liberation Army.
The militant groups operate in an area that includes Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan and Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province. Both regions are restive, mineral-rich and largely underdeveloped and wracked by decades-long separatist insurgencies.
The tit-for-tat conflict quickly de-escalated and the foreign minister of Iran visited Islamabad, with both nations saying they respected each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity and would expand security cooperation in a bid to mend ties.
The most notable deal between the neighboring countries — a 2010 gas pipeline agreement from Iran's South Fars field to Pakistan's Balochistan and Sindh — also remains stalled.
During meetings on Monday, the two countries discussed the spectrum of bilateral ties.
'We discussed expanding bilateral relations in different sectors including politics, economy, culture as well as international cooperation between the two countries,' Pezeshkian said at the joint press conference.
In May, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi visited Pakistan to help ease tensions between Pakistan and India during the worst military confrontation in decades between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
