Tehran, Islamabad to resume diplomatic ties after tit-for-tat raids
Iran and Pakistan announced Monday that their ambassadors would resume their duties after the two countries agreed to de-escalate tensions following an exchange of deadly strikes last week.
“It has been mutually agreed that the ambassadors of both countries would return to their respective posts by January 26,” said a joint statement by the foreign ministries in Tehran and Islamabad.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is due to visit Pakistan on January 29, following an invitation from his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas Jilani, the statement said.
The decisions were announced following a phone call between Jilani and Amir-Abdollahian.
The two neighboring countries witnessed an escalation of cross-border tensions over Iran’s counter-terrorism operations.
On January 16, Iran launched drone and missile attacks on two bases of Jaish al-Adl, an anti-Iran terrorist group that was formed in 2012 and has conducted several attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.
The group claimed responsibility for an attack in December 2023 on a police station in the southeastern city of Rask that killed at least 11 Iranian police officers. On January 10, another attack by the group on a police station in the city killed one officer.
The Iranian strikes in Pakistan drew a sharp rebuke from Islamabad, which recalled its ambassador from Tehran and blocked Iran’s envoy from returning to Pakistan.
Pakistan also carried out strikes on Thursday against what it called bases of the separatist Baloch Liberation Front and Baloch Liberation Army in regions close to Iran’s border.
Tehran condemned the attack as unacceptable and unbalanced and summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires over the strikes on Thursday, which left at least nine people dead.
On Friday, Jilani and Amir-Abdollahian agreed in a phone conversation “to de-escalate the situation” between the two countries.