At least 14 bus passengers were killed in an ambush by unknown armed men in the southwest of Pakistan on Thursday Twitter AFP
(RFE/RL) — Pakistan has urged Iran to take action against terrorist groups believed to be behind the killing of 14 soldiers earlier this week.
“We hope that Iran will take visible action,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said during an April 20 press conference.
Qureshi said 15 gunmen wearing military uniforms ambushed a bus in southwestern Balochistan Province on April 18, killing 14 Pakistani Army personnel.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a letter to the Iranian government that the assailants came from an alliance of three Baluch terrorist organizations based in Iran.
The announcement came a day before Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Iran.
Qureshi told reporters that the planned two-day visit, beginning on April 21, was intact and that Khan would take up the matter with Iranian authorities.
Qureshi said he spoke to his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on April 20 to share the initial findings of a Pakistani probe into the killing of security personnel with him.
There was no immediate reaction from Tehran.
Earlier this year, Iran called on Pakistan to take action against a militant group behind a deadly attack on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Twenty-seven IRGC members were killed in the February suicide car bombing near the border with Pakistan.
The Sunni Muslim extremist group Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for the attack in southeastern Iran.