ISLAMABAD: As if Iran’s summoning of Pakistan’s ambassador in Tehran to protest Islamabad’s recruitment of thousands of Pakistanis into Bahrain’s security forces was not enough, on Friday IRNA reported that Iran was building a concrete fence along its 700-km long border with Pakistan to stop cross-border movement of terrorists, according to Iran’s defence minister.
The three feet thick and 10 feet high fence, built with concrete and fortified by steel rods, will span the impenetrable mountainous terrain in southeastern Iran, Brig Gen Ahmad Vahidi told IRNA news agency.
“The fence will prevent villains from crossing into the Islamic republic,” said Vahidi. The fence would start from Taftan area to Mand in the Baloch-majority Sistan province, which borders Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
On Thursday when the Foreign Office Spokesperson was asked about irritants in the Pak-Iran bilateral relation, especially regarding the summoning of Pakistan’s ambassador, she responded, “With Iran, we have very good relations. We discuss all issues in a very friendly manner. We should avoid speculation in this regard.”
Pakistan has become the most fenced-in neighbour in the region with India already having set up an electric fence at the Line of Control to check people crossing over into Indian Held Kashmir. Earlier, former dictator Pervez Musharraf had also suggested fencing and mining the Pak-Afghan border but the idea was shot down by Pakistani and Afghan tribes who frequently cross over for social and business interactions.
While the Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline has brought the two neighbours together in spite of stiff resistance by the US, troubled relations have bedeviled both countries in the past. Bilateral relations were at their lowest when Pakistan recognised the Taliban in Kabul, and only after Islamabad denounced them after 9/11 did the two patch up.
Iran had also expressed its annoyance when Pakistan looked the other way when the Bush administration pumped millions of dollars for a regime change in Tehran while supporting the Jundullah group on the Pak-Iran border, something that the US media reported widely. Jundullah leader Abdolmalek Rigi was arrested by Iranian intelligence forces in February 2010 and was subsequently hanged. Iran had commented at the time that the arrest was due to its own efforts and not Pakistan’s.
