UN chief ‘deeply concerned’

FE Team | Published: January 19, 2024 23:26:18

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 19 (AFP): UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed concern Thursday after Iran and Pakistan exchanged air strikes on each other's territory.
"The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about the recent exchange of military strikes between Iran and Pakistan, which have reportedly caused casualties on both sides," said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "He urges both countries to exercise maximum restraint to avoid a further escalation of tensions."
Earlier, US President Joe Biden said Thursday that air strikes by Pakistan and Iran on each other's territory showed Tehran was not "well-liked" in an increasingly tense region. "As you can see, Iran is not particularly well liked in the region," Biden told reporters at the White House, adding that "we're working on" understanding how the situation will develop.
Meanwhile, an Iranian strike on Pakistan this week that drew a rapid military riposte and raised fears of greater regional turmoil was driven by Iran's efforts to reinforce its internal security rather than its ambitions for the Middle East, according to three Iranian officials, one Iranian insider and an analyst.
Both the heavily-armed neighbours, oftentimes at odds over instability on their frontier, appear to want to try to contain the strains resulting from the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years, two analysts and two of the officials said.
Iran sent shockwaves around the region on Tuesday with a missile strike against what it described as hardline Sunni Muslim militants in southwest Pakistan. Two days later, Pakistan in retaliation attacked what it said were separatist militants in Iran - the first air strike by warplanes on Iranian soil since the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Tuesday's strike was one of Iran's toughest cross-border assaults on the Sunni militant Jaish al-Adl group in Pakistan, which it says has links to Islamic State. Many of Jaish's members previously belonged to a now-defunct militant group known as Jundallah that had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.