'An Attempt to Spoil Relations': Pak Foreign Minister after Gunmen Kill 9 Near Iran's Border Area

Pakistan Foriegn Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani on Saturday expressed grief over the killing of nine Pakistani nationals by gunmen in southeastern Iran, days after the neighbouring countries sought to ease tensions after the tit-for-tat cross-border fire.

Unknown armed men killed nine non-Iranians in a house in the Sirkan neighbourhood of Saravan City in Sistan-Balochistan province. So far, no group has claimed responsibility, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported. The province’s deputy governor, Alireza Marhamati, told the IRNA news agency “Three armed people shot at the foreigners after entering their residence and fled the scene.” Marhamati confirmed the toll of nine deaths and said three others were wounded.

‘Horrifying killing’

The Pakistani ambassador to Tehran, Muhammad Mudassir Tipu, said on X, he was “deeply shocked by the horrifying killing of 9 Pakistanis in Saravan”. “Embassy will extend full support to bereaved families… We called upon Iran to extend full cooperation in the matter.” Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch condemned the attack as “horrifying and despicable” and asked Iranian authorities to “investigate the incident and hold to account those involved in this heinous crime”.

She stressed that the Pakistani embassy in Iran “will do its best to repatriate dead bodies at the earliest”, adding that “such cowardly attacks cannot deter Pakistan from its determination to fight terrorism”. The deadly attack follows rare military action in the porous border region of Balochistan — split between the two nations — that had stoked regional tensions already inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war.

Sistan-Balochistan, one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran, has seen persistent unrest involving cross-border drug-smuggling gangs and rebels from the Baluchi ethnic minority, as well as jihadists. On January 18, Pakistan launched air strikes on “militant targets” in Iran, two days after Iran had launched strikes on its territory. Tehran said it had targeted Jaish al-Adl, a jihadist group which has carried out a spate of deadly attacks in Iran in recent months and blacklisted by Iran as a “terrorist” organisation.

The Iranian strikes, which Pakistan said killed at least two children, drew a sharp rebuke from Islamabad, which recalled its ambassador from Tehran and blocked Iran’s envoy from returning to Islamabad. Tehran also summoned Islamabad’s charge d’affaires over Pakistan’s strikes, which left at least nine people dead. The two countries, however, announced last Monday that they had decided to de-escalate and resumed diplomatic missions with the two ambassadors returning to their posts.

On Saturday, the Pakistani ambassador presented his credentials to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran. “Borders are an opportunity for economic exchanges and improving the security of neighbours, and it is necessary to protect this opportunity against any element of insecurity,” Raisi said during the meeting with the Pakistani envoy.

(With agency inputs)