Dubai: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has called for “decisive” action by Pakistan against a militant group behind a deadly suicide attack in a border area, saying failure to act could jeopardise relations.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA said Rouhani’s remarks were made during a telephone conversation on Saturday with neighbouring Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, who said he would soon have “good news” for Iran, according to the report.
A suicide bomber killed 27 members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards in mid-February in a south-eastern region where security forces are facing a rise in attacks by militants from the Sunni Muslim minority.
The Sunni group Jaish al Adl (Army of Justice), which says it seeks greater rights and better living conditions for the ethnic Baluchi minority, claimed responsibility for the attack.
“We are awaiting your decisive operations against these terrorists,” IRNA quoted Rouhani as telling Khan.
“We should not allow decades of friendship and fraternity between the two countries to be affected by the actions of small terrorist groups, the source of whose financing and arms is known to both of us,” Rouhani said.
Iran has blamed its regional rival Saudi Arabia and arch-enemies Israel and the United States for the attack and other cross-border raids, an accusation rejected by the countries.
Read the article in The Sydney Morning Herald(Reuters).