Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi will journey to Islamabad on April 22 to fulfill his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry mentioned, as the 2 nations search to fix ties following lethal cross-border assaults this 12 months.
Mr. Raisi can be accompanied by “a high-level delegation comprising the foreign minister… as well as a large business delegation,” the Foreign Ministry mentioned in a press release on Sunday.
The tit-for-tat missile strikes in January within the porous border area of Balochistan — cut up between the 2 nations — stoked regional tensions already infected by the Israel-Hamas warfare.
Tehran carried out the strikes towards an anti-Iran group in Pakistan the identical week it focused Iraq and Syria.
Pakistan responded with a raid on “militant targets” in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province, one of many few primarily Sunni Muslim areas in Shiite-dominated Iran.
Both nations have previously accused one another of sheltering militants.
A go to to Islamabad by Tehran’s international minister led to the 2 sides pledging to enhance dialogue and set up liaison officers in each nations.
Sistan-Balochistan province has for years confronted unrest involving cross-border drug-smuggling gangs and rebels from the Baloch ethnic minority, and Muslim extremists.
Raisi will even go to Lahore and Karachi to fulfill provincial leaders, in response to the assertion.
The nations will additional strengthen ties and improve cooperation in “trade, connectivity, energy, agriculture, and people-to-people contacts”, it added.
Pakistan is relying on a joint fuel venture with Iran to unravel a long-running energy disaster that has sapped its financial development.
A $7.5-billion Iran-Pakistan fuel pipeline meant to feed Pakistani energy crops was inaugurated with nice fanfare in March 2013.
But the venture instantly stagnated following worldwide sanctions on Iran.
Tehran has constructed its personal part of the 1,800-kilometer (1,100-mile) pipeline, which ought to ultimately hyperlink its South Pars fuel fields to the Pakistani metropolis of Nawabshah, close to Karachi.
In February, Pakistan’s outgoing caretaker authorities permitted the development of an 80-kilometer part of the pipeline, primarily to keep away from the fee of billions of {dollars} in penalties to Iran resulting from years of delays.
Washington has warned that Pakistan might face US sanctions, saying it doesn’t help the pipeline going ahead.
Source: www.thehindu.com
