ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday condemned the killing of one of the five Iranian border guards by militants and extended all possible support in tracking the whereabouts of the missing Iranian border guards.
On February 6, a Sunni militant group Jaish ul Adl abducted five Iranian border guards in Jakigour region in the Iranian province of Sistan-Balochistan and allegedly took them across the border to Pakistan.
The militant group claimed on Sunday that it had killed one of the five Iranian soldiers, Jamshid Danaeifar.
“Pakistan shares the grief and agony of the families of the martyr and the other border guards,” the Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said in a statement on Wednesday.
The FO spokesperson said that Pakistan has extended all possible support in tracking the whereabouts of the missing Iranian border guards. She said that during the last meeting of the joint border commission in Quetta last month, a border coordination committee was also established to assist with the effort.
“Pakistan stands ready to act on any credible and actionable intelligence made available to it,” the spokesperson said.
However, she said, the Pakistan’s investigations have neither corroborated nor established the entry into or presence within Pakistani territory of the Iranian border guards.
The spokesperson further said that Pakistan deeply values its brotherly relations with Iran.
“The two countries are engaged in a number of bilateral processes to forge a closer and cooperative relationship for the common benefit of the people of our two countries,” Aslam said.
On Tuesday, Iran expressed deep regret at the death of one of the five border guards, noting that Islamabad should be held accountable for the grave incident.
In a statement, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Marziyeh Afkham called on Pakistan to take serious and prompt action to arrest those terrorists and guarantee the release of the Iranian soldiers.
