The Commander of Southern Command, Lieutenant General Sarfraz Ali in his first ever interview with IRNA said if you compare the current border situation with past, it has been improved considerably with lots of achievements and for months not a single incident has been reported on the border areas.
He added that in the past there had been communication gap between the two sides but now there is absolutely no communication gap between the armed forces of the two countries, especially the border forces.
He further stated there are lots of commonalities between the two countries and when "I met with my Iranian counterpart and other Iranian brothers, I was amazed to see the well-maintained level of understanding between the two countries". He viewed "we have to further enhance our communication with the Iranian side".
“Recently I met with my Iranian counterpart and we have made good progress to deal with border issues through close contacts,” the General said.
On border fencing, he said that fencing is one of the major steps that the two countries have initiated to take control of the border.
He went on to say in past, despite some reservations on border issues the two countries were reluctant to establish a proper communication to deal with such problems. "But now we have resolved the issues and cooperating a lot in border regions."
Lieutenant General Sarfraz Ali said that "we must identify the issues on which we have to cooperate".
He said that regional cooperation is very important which will also help to enhance "our bilateral trade". The Commander said that the steps of the two countries to secure border should produce some positive outcome and "we should not worry about any negative consequences". “As we move forward jointly in a positive direction there will be no problems,” he said.
Talking about the challenges of the border residents, he said we have established good contacts with the people residing in border areas. The General added that "we have made a good progress in controlling the illegal crossing across the border".
He said we have taken all measures to address the reservations of our Iranian brothers and we expect the same from them.
Lieutenant General Sarfraz Ali stressed that door of cooperation and consultations between the two countries should always remain open. He said that cross border movements should always take place through notified crossing points adding that there should be no illegal movement on the border once the fencing work is completed.
The Commander said that we have not discouraged the trade rather we seek to enhance bilateral trade through positive steps but some check on cross border movements is necessary.
He said previously we had four border crossing points but now we have eight border crossing points with a purpose to facilitate the bilateral trade and cross border movements.
The general said that due to our stringent measures hardly any untoward incident is reported in recent months.
He added that border fencing project has given much confidence to the border forces of the two countries and because of it socio-economic development is taking place on both sides of the border. He said that by taking advantage of such opportunities we must enhance mutual trade which will also help improve the lives of the border residents.
Lieutenant General Sarfraz Ali said many Iranian products are coming into Pakistani markets, especially Quetta, which I personally support but this activity should be properly managed and regularized.
“I won’t tolerate any terrorist activity on our Iranian brothers from our soil and we except the same from them," he said.
He stressed upon the need to enhance mutual security cooperation between the two countries with full control on areas falling under their domain.
The General said "I strongly believe that Iran is our brother and we will promptly act if they complain of any illegal activity on our side against them and we expect that if we have any issue with their side they will also take action to address our concern" in the same spirit". He said that such move will prove to be an important confidence building measure.
Lieutenant General Sarfraz Ali said that many people in Afghanistan by taking advantage of the situation in the country want to go to Europe through all illegal means and that is why they use the territory of Pakistan to enter into Iran. He said that "we have arrested many Afghans tend to enter Iran illegally and handed over to the Afghan forces".
“I have a strong resolve to secure the border against such illegal cross border movements but the problem is that there are about two million Afghan refugees in Pakistan which make things difficult for us,” said the General.
He said that there should be stability in Afghanistan to overcome such regional issues.
He strongly believed that Iran and Pakistan have a lot to gain on many fronts through joint cooperation.
“Our destiny and objectives are the same, we want stability in Afghanistan, we stress on regional stability and HOPE, people of the two countries should take advantage of the opportunities available and the military of the two countries can learn from each others’ experience,” he said.
He said that Iran and Pakistan do not give importance to the so called separatists in border areas but the only problem is that if such minority groups are operating in Pakistan they would have a direct impact on Iran and vice versa.
He said last year he visited Iran and saw the cities of Mashhad, Esfahan, Shiraz and Tehran adding that the thing which was so impressing is that the people of Iran are very civilized. I have been to Iran so many times and people of Iran are very close to my heart.
The Commander said that during his stay in Damascus for training he had Iranians friends over there who were very generous and introduced him with delicious Iranian cuisine and I was very impressed with their civilized behavior.
“Esfahan was truly Nisf-e-jehan (half the world) when I saw the great beautiful city and I hope that my strong connection with Iranian brothers will continue to grow,” he said.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan cannot stop their cooperation even if they want to do so, because of the commonalities between the two nations and geographic location of the two states.
Therefore, the military and security officials of both sides have made positive efforts to solve the border problems which have a direct impact on the daily lives of the people of both sides.
Although the Islamic Republic of Iran for past many years has been pursuing the policy of strong ties with neighboring countries, but third parties have always tried to harm this policy of Tehran which is not in the interest of Iran and its neighbors.
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