Taliban says it has no quarrel with Islamic Republic of Iran
Taliban officials responded to recent reports of tensions on Iran-Afghanistan borders by declaring that they refrain from any warfare and conflict with Tehran, but they also do not accept military deployment on the shared border..
In this regard, Shebir Ahmad, head of the working group at the Taliban’s defense ministry and head of the Taliban leadership council in coordinating border affairs with Iran, met and held discussions with Seyed Hassan Mortazavi, deputy ambassador of the Islamic Republic at the Kabul embassy on Tuesday.
The Taliban representative said in this meeting: “Our policy towards neighboring countries, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, which hosts millions of Afghan citizens, is to prevent any warfare and conflict and move towards comprehensive cooperation..”
He further clarified by referring to some existing problems on the shared borders of the two countries that “we ask the Islamic Republic of Iran to cooperate with the new Afghan government in various fields of border security, including prevention of human trafficking and drug smuggling as well as combating terrorism..”
Three days earlier, tensions between the two countries occurred due to clashes between Iranian and Afghan border guards. While Iranian border guards cited the entry of road construction machinery from Afghanistan as the cause of the tensions, Afghan border officials said they “detained an Iranian military vehicle after it illegally entered Afghan territory.”
According to Iranian domestic news agencies, after these tensions, Ibrahim Raisi’s special representative called for an end to the tensions in contact with Afghanistan’s interior and defense ministries and emphasized resolving the matter within the framework of the two countries’ supreme border commission..
This comes as a Taliban diplomat recently entered Tehran for activity at the Afghan embassy and is expected to serve at the level of “third secretary” in Tehran.
After Pakistan, Qatar, Turkmenistan, and Russia, the Islamic Republic is the fifth country to accept Taliban diplomats to work in Afghanistan’s embassies and consular representatives.
Source: Voice of America
