Border Clashes with Taliban Result from Long-standing Dispute over 500 Meters of Land
Iranian news agencies, citing Iran’s Interior Minister, reported that recent border clashes between Iranian border guards and Taliban forces stemmed from a misunderstanding, but have prompted changes in the deployment of Iran’s armed forces along the Afghan border.
Ahmad Vahidi told the Tasnim news agency: “The Taliban mistakenly believed it should control certain border areas, but we informed Kabul that it must stop encroaching on Iranian territory.”
Following the emergence of these disputes at the Dogharon border in Razavi Khorasan Province, the Taliban attributed the onset of tensions to Iran’s military vehicle entering Afghan territory, but the Islamic Republic stated that the cause of tensions was the Taliban’s road construction machinery entering Iranian soil.
However, Wahid Payaman, a journalist and former diplomat at Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry, told Voice of America in an exclusive interview: “The main reason for creating tensions between the Taliban and Iranian border guards is a 60-year-old dispute over a 500-meter road.”
Wahid Payaman, noting that this road in the Dogharon Islam Qala border area remains an unpaved road, said: “Iran and Afghanistan, over the past two decades, have repeatedly held talks to resolve this issue and improve this piece of land, and it was agreed that both sides would equally divide this road, each separately asphalt it and end the disputes, but with the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan, this chronic problem remained unresolved.”
He added: “The previous Afghan government had begun improving operations on this road, which were halted with the Taliban’s rise to power, but the Taliban’s ignorance of legal matters and past agreements with Iran and entering areas under Iranian control caused these clashes to occur.”
On the third of Ordibehesht, initially some social media users reported a “border clash” between Iranian and Taliban forces by posting videos. Shortly after, the “Fars” news agency, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, while confirming the “closure of the Islam Qala border,” reported a “border tension” between Iran and Afghanistan, but denied the occurrence of “clashes.”
Shebir Ahmad, acting head of the Taliban leadership council overseeing border affairs with Iran, met on Tuesday with Seyyed Hassan Mortazavi, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Islamic Republic at the embassy in Kabul, and emphasized: “Our policy toward neighboring countries, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is moving toward comprehensive cooperation.”
Iran and Afghanistan share approximately 900 kilometers of common border.
Source: Voice of America
