WITH an already fragile internal security situation, Pakistan does not need additional tension on the external front. That is why the positive vibes emerging from Quetta, where Pakistani and Iranian officials recently concluded a three-day meeting, need to be welcomed. The bilateral atmosphere has been vitiated of late by the kidnapping of five Iranian border guards, who were abducted inside their country and reportedly brought to Pakistan by Jaishul Adl, a militant group. Things heated up when a senior Iranian official commented that Tehran could send troops inside Pakistan to recover the guards. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed last week at the joint border commission meeting where officials from both countries announced that a joint panel would be formed to recover the Iranian soldiers. Joint border patrols were also proposed.

The fact is the Pakistan-Iran border is a long and porous one. Human traffickers use loopholes to surreptitiously slip migrants into Iran for onward journey to Europe, while drug smuggling in the area is also a problem. Yet the issue that has the ability to particularly damage bilateral relations is that of cross-border militancy. Jaishul Adl carried out a deadly attack in the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan last year while the anti-Iranian Jundallah outfit, which has committed numerous terrorist attacks across the border, has been accused by some in Iran of finding sanctuary inside Pakistan. Both Pakistan and Iran face unrest in their border regions; hence close cooperation is required to prevent one country’s soil from being used against the other by non-state actors. While Iran’s talk of sending troops inside Pakistan in ‘hot pursuit’ is totally unacceptable, it is equally undesirable if militants are using safe havens inside Pakistan to foment trouble in Iran. Pakistan did well not to overreact to the recent rise in tensions. Instead of indulging in media diplomacy, both Islamabad and Tehran need to strengthen the lines of official communication in order to jointly address the problem of transnational militancy and other irritants that work to harm bilateral ties.