QUETTA: Consul General of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Rafiei has said that Iran and Pakistan enjoy cordial relations in different fields since long and “we are mainly focusing on strengthening ties with Pakistan in the field of trade and economic cooperation”.

Addressing a press conference at his office here, he said peace in areas bordering Pakistan’s Balochistan was significant to Iran.

In recent high-level meetings, his country had pledged to further improve its relations with Pakistan, especially in trade.”

He said that Iran was keen to join the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). “Since CPEC originates from Balochistan, therefore, we also mainly focus on Balochistan in terms of trade and economics.” “Chabahar and Gwadar are two sister ports and these are not rivals to each other,” he added.

Talking about recent tragic incident in Mirjaveh in which 10 Iranian border guards died and one of them was still missing, he said a role may be played to bring perpetrators to book.

“The Iranian public put pressure on the government after the recent tragic incident in Mirjaveh as a result of which Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held six meetings with Pakistan’s civil and military leaderships in a couple of hours.

So much so, Pakistan’s interior minister also said that his visit was a clear message to those who did not want positive relations between Pakistan and Iran.”

The Iranian diplomat said: “We further hope that militants of Jaish-ul-Adl will either be killed or arrested who, he believed, had targeted our security guards.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2017