No disruption in trade activities with Iran on border points despite tensions: Pakistan

The tit-for-tat strikes by the two countries are the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years and have raised alarm about wider instability in the region.

Flags of Pakistan and Iran.

Credit: iStock Photo

Karachi: Trade activities between Pakistan and Iran remained uninterrupted at all the border points in the restive Balochistan province despite tensions between them following their tit-for-tat military strikes in each other's territory, Pakistani officials have said.

On Friday, more than 100 trucks carrying vegetables and other goods crossed from the Taftan border into Iran, Makran Commissioner Saeed Ahmed Umrani said.

Pakistan conducted "precision military strikes" against what it called "terrorist hideouts" in Iran's Siestan-Balochistan province that killed 9 people on Thursday.

The attack was seen as retaliation to Iranian missile and drone attacks on Tuesday, which targeted two bases of the Sunni Baloch militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan's unruly Balochistan province.

Umrani said the positive thing was that governments on both sides now making efforts to move on with trade activities at the border crossing points of Taf­tan, Gwadar, Kech, Panj­gur and Washuk in Balochistan.

“Trade has been going on normally with vehicles and containers coming in and going there because despite the tensions," he said.

Mumtaz Khetran, the deputy commissioner of Panjgur, said that liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and other petroleum products were transported into Pakistan in the last 24 hours through the Chidgey border with Iran.

Pakistan earlier reca­lled its 34-member trade delegation from Chabahar after the Iranian strikes in the Panjgur area.