Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, left, meets with Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Syed Asim Munir in Rawalpindi, Pakistan on Jan. 29. (Inter Services Public Relations via AP)
LAHORE, Pakistan — A move by Pakistan and Iran to restore their relationship after tit-for-tat missile strikes on militant groups is being overshadowed by the risk that such outfits will continue to act as spoilers in the increasingly volatile region.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian visited Pakistan on Monday and met with caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar ul-Haq Kakar and army chief Syed Asim Munir, before holding a joint news conference with his Pakistani counterpart Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani.
The two sides vowed to respect each other’s sovereignty and expand security cooperation, with Abdollahian saying, “We will not let terrorists endanger and threaten the security of the two nations.” Iran had launched the first salvo earlier in January, targeting the alleged bases of a militant group in the restive Pakistani province of Balochistan. Islamabad fired back days later at “terrorist hideouts” in the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
But even before Monday’s talks began, militants had already shaken the ties again by killing Pakistani laborers in Iran over the weekend. The tensions between Pakistan and Iran are also part of a much broader outbreak of violence in the Middle East, roiled by the Israel-Hamas war and other flaring conflicts. The U.S. has blamed Iran-backed militants for a drone attack on Sunday that killed three of its service members and wounded dozens, a claim Tehran denied.
On Saturday in Iran, unidentified militants stormed a compound in the city of Saravan in Sistan-Baluchistan — 55 kilometers from the Pakistani border and not far from where Pakistan conducted its airstrikes.
Thirteen Pakistani laborers were living in the compound. The attackers killed nine, mainly motor mechanics and helpers. According to local media, a relative of one of the slain laborers said the attackers were chanting that the killings were revenge for Pakistan’s strikes inside Iran.
A security official who requested anonymity told Nikkei Asia that the killings were indeed most likely a response to Pakistan’s action, which targeted Baloch separatists who aim to carve out an independent state in a region that has key China-backed Belt and Road Initiative projects, particularly the port of Gwadar.
“The Pakistani airstrikes were a big blow to the Baloch separatist groups and they vowed revenge against Pakistan,” said the official. “Pakistani laborers inside Iran were a soft target and hence they were killed by gunmen somehow linked with Baloch separatists.”
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist organization outlawed by Pakistan, denied involvement in the killing of the laborers through a press statement. But experts fear that separatists and religious extremist groups such as Jaish al-Adl — a Sunni Islamist group that was the target of Iran’s strikes — want to obstruct normalization efforts between the neighbors.
Fakhar Kakakhel, an independent analyst specializing in militancy in Pakistan, told Nikkei Asia that improved relations between Iran and Pakistan would leave less space for the militant groups on either side, and thus they are “very much active to spoil normalization.”
Further muddying the picture, Abdollahian also argued during the news conference that there is no doubt that militants in the border areas of Pakistan and Iran are directed and supported by third countries. These countries, he said, “never favor any good action in line with the benefits of the Iranian and Pakistani governments and nations.”
The region has certainly seen a sharp rise in proxy warfare in recent months, with Iran allegedly in the thick of it. The U.S. has accused Tehran of being behind the drone strike in Jordan, as well as attacks by Yemen-based Houthi militants against shipping in the Red Sea. This has raised fears of a more direct confrontation. After the Jordan incident, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “The president and I will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the U.S. and our troops.”
Iran said it is not involved in how such groups respond to “American aggressors.”
Experts suggest that while there may be some truth to Abdollahian’s statement about third parties, it represents an attempt to externalize the militancy problem near the border without addressing the core issues.
Alex Vatanka, founding director of the Iran program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said there is indeed a history of third-party foreign intelligence services operating in Iran-Pakistan border regions. “However, the problem of ethnic Baloch militancy has a root cause,” Vatanka said.
“Neither Tehran nor Islamabad have done anything serious to deal with local grievances among ethnic Baloch,” he said. “It is in this dire socio-economic environment that militants recruit among locals.”
During his visit, the Iranian foreign minister also announced that liaison officers would be stationed in Turbat, Pakistan, and Zahidan, Iran, for border coordination. But experts like Vatanka do not consider this a major development.
“Neither Iran nor Pakistan has seriously pursued the idea of security cooperation,” Vatanka said.
He added that the two neighbors have combined military forces of over 1 million, while militant Balochs operating on both sides of the border probably number a few thousand at most. “To defeat militancy [near the border] is not about a lack of capacity but a lack of joint will,” he said. “Tehran and Islamabad have no one but themselves to blame.”