Tehran and Islamabad announced that they would re-normalize diplomatic relations by reinstating their ambassadors to their roles by Friday, January 26.
In a joint statement released on Monday, January 22, both countries declared that the agreement had been reached during a phone conversation between Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas Jilani. The phone call was the third exchange the two chief diplomats had since their countries fired missiles at each other.
“Following the telephone conversation between the Foreign Ministers of Pakistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran, it has been mutually agreed that ambassadors of both countries may return to their respective posts by 26 January 2024,” the joint statement which was simultaneously released by Tehran and Islamabad read.
Diplomatic relations between the two neighbors had soared after Iran fired missiles and carried out drone strikes into Pakistan’s Balochistan province, claiming to have targeted Jaish-ul-Adl, a Baloch insurgency fighting against the Islamic Republic. In response, Islamabad retaliated with missile strikes claiming to have hit hideouts of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) which Pakistan considers a terror organization, in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province. The strikes reportedly killed 11 civilians, with nine fatalities in Iran and two children in Pakistan.
Before retaliation, however, Pakistan’s caretaker government downgraded its diplomatic ties by recalling its ambassador from Tehran and advising the Iranian envoy, who was in Iran at that time, not to return to the country for the time being.
On Friday, the caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan, Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, said that it is in the interest of both countries to normalize relations given the longstanding history of brotherly ties. “Pakistan would welcome and reciprocate all positive measures from the Iranian side,” he said.
Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan governments share problems in the Baloch insurgencies who fight against them. Both of them, Jaish-ul-Adl in Iran and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) in Pakistan demand autonomy from Tehran and Islamabad. Both countries’ Balochistan provinces share a porous border with a myriad of human trafficking, drug, and arms smuggling. Now and then, border issues in Balochistan bring the two capitals into a clash.
The recent exchange of airstrikes between Iran and Pakistan adds to a long list of incidents that have mostly led to border tensions between the two neighbors. In June 2023, the Pakistani military reported that armed “terrorists” had killed two Pakistani soldiers at a checkpoint in the border region with Iran. Pakistan requested assistance from Iranian authorities to prevent insurgents from escaping into Iran. In April of the same year, the media wing of the Pakistani military reported that an attacker from Iran had killed four of its border guards near the Iran border. Pakistani authorities have continually urged Iran to hold the perpetrators of the incidents accountable.
In December 2018, a suicide attack on a police headquarters in Iran’s southern city of Chabahar resulted in the deaths of at least four Iranian police officers, with over 40 others wounded. The former Iranian Foreign Minister, Jawad Zarif, attributed the attack to “foreign-backed terrorists,” a statement widely interpreted as an implicit accusation against Pakistan. Months earlier in the same year, twelve Iranian security personnel, including members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were abducted along the southern border with Pakistan. Jaish al-Adl, a separatist group, claimed responsibility for the incident. Subsequently, five of the abductees were released with the assistance of Pakistani security forces, while the fate of the remaining individuals remains unknown.
