Iran spares no effort to boost Pakistan’s stability: Shamkhani

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani says the Islamic Republic will “spare no effort” to improve security and stability in Pakistan.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran regards [the establishment of] a developed and stable Pakistan as the guarantee of its own security and will spare no effort in this regard,” Shamkhani said in the second round of official talks with Naseer Khan Janjua, Adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security, in Tehran on Tuesday.

He added that Tehran and Islamabad have managed to make progress in negotiations about ways to combat the threat of of terrorism and its spread in the region.

The SNSC secretary noted that grounds have been prepared for the two countries’ national security councils to improve bilateral, regional and international cooperation.

Janjua, for his part, said Tehran and Islamabad must make joint efforts to remove obstacles in the way of strengthening cooperation.

He added that his country has always attached importance to a genuine and unrelenting fight against terrorism and destabilizing factors and welcomes bolstering cooperation with Iran.

The Pakistani security official is in Tehran for a three-day official visit. The first round of talks between Shamkhani and Janjua was held on Monday.

Janjua on Monday also held separate meetings with Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli and Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on international affairs.

In February 2013, Iran and Pakistan signed a security agreement, under which both countries agreed to cooperate in preventing and combating organized crime and fight against terrorism and activities posing a threat to national security of the two counties.

Iran has repeatedly called on its eastern neighbors to rein in terrorists who cross the borders to carry out terror attacks on the Iranian soil. Iranian forces have recently engaged in clashes with terror groups, thwarting their terrorist activities on the border and within the country, arresting several of them and confiscating large amounts of explosives and bomb-making materials.

On July 6, four Iranian border guards were killed in an ambush by terrorists in Sistan and Baluchestan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In June, a police officer and five members of the so-called Jaish ul-Adl terror group were killed in the city of Khash of the same province.