High-level Iran-Pakistan ...
Page 1
Iran and Pakistan’s shared security issues are largely bilateral and are not central to Pakistan’s foreign-policy experiment. For this reason, the prospect of a high-level security accord that could transform Iran-Pakistan relations does not appear realistic, at least in the short term.
Given the two countries’ similar views on Afghanistan, how might they cooperate on this issue?
Afghanistan is a shared concern due to the role played by the Taliban government in relation to terrorism and security incidents occurring either inside Iran and Pakistan or along their borders. The Taliban authorities seem unwilling — or perhaps unable — to resolve these issues diplomatically. Considering the influence of the Haqqani Network within the Taliban government, Kabul may lack the capacity to control TTP, which is closely linked to this faction.
This combination of factors shows the severity of the threat and highlights the need for Iran and Pakistan to coordinate their foreign policies toward the Taliban government so they can keep a lid on these risks.
While Pakistan has taken a far more forceful approach, including carrying out military strikes inside Afghanistan, Iran does not appear to favor of launching a broad military campaign to suppress terrorist groups there, likely for its own strategic reasons. However, at the technical and diplomatic levels, the two sides can cooperate by coordinating their policies and sharing security data to manage these shared challenges.
Do you think Iran has the potential to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan in their recent conflicts?
A country can mediate effectively only if it holds active common interests with both parties. Iran does indeed share such interests with both Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the nature of these interests differs. With Afghanistan, the common ground is primarily economic and less security-focused, while with Pakistan the opposite is true; the overlap is mostly security-related and less economic.
This mismatch reduces Iran’s capacity to act as a mediator. It also explains why forums such as the Doha process emerge, or why meetings in Turkey take place, where Ankara attempts to mediate.