Pakistan urges Iran not to let ‘terrorists use its soil for attacks'

KARACHI, Pakistan

Pakistan on Thursday urged neighboring Iran not to let "terrorists" use its soil to launch attacks inside the South Asian nuclear country.

“Pakistan strongly condemns the terrorist attack from across the Iran border,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Mumtaz Zehra Baloch said during a weekly briefing in the capital Islamabad.

“Terrorists used the territory of Iran (to conduct the attack). We hope that Iran would take an action against the responsible factors,” she added.

She was referring to a terrorist attack on a patrolling party on Wednesday, killing four soldiers in the remote Panjgur district of southwestern Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan.

“We strongly commit that our territory will not be used for undertaking cross-border attacks in Iran and we expect the same from Iran,” the spokeswoman further said, adding that the two countries enjoy “exemplary brotherly relations.”

Earlier, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan army, said that terrorists attacked security personnel from across the Pakistan-Iran border.

“The terrorists used Iranian soil to target a convoy of security forces patrolling along the border (and) the Iranian side has been asked to hunt down the terrorists on their side," said the ISPR.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army has been carrying out attacks on security forces in the province and the military has been active for a long time to eliminate terrorists’ hideouts from the province.

Mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan's largest and poorest province. It is a key route for the $64 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of Beijing's Belt and Road initiative.

China is also developing the Gwadar port and is involved in other projects in the restive province.