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World Affairs
Mahesh

31/01/24 07:11 AM IST

Pakistan and Iran rivalrly

In News
  • Iran launched missile strikes in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, targeting alleged strongholds of the Jaish al-Adl.
Baloch provinces in Iran & Pakistan
  • The Sistan-Baluchestan province, one of the largest provinces in Iran, shares the border with Pakistan’s Balochistan and Afghanistan’s southern provinces.
  • The Baloch are the majority in the Sistan-Baluchestan province, with Sistanis as a minority. The former is Sunni, while the latter is Shia.
  • Geographically, Balochistan is the largest of four provinces in Pakistan, with a Baloch majority (which is now being threatened by the Pashtun ingress from Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). However, Baloch are a minority within Pakistan.
  • Pakistan’s Balochistan province shares a long border with Iran, around 900 km.
  • Unlike the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which is disputed by Kabul, the Pakistan-Iran border is settled.
  • Both countries have been building a concrete wall along the border to prevent illegal crossings between Balochistan (in Pakistan) and Sistan-Baluchestan (in Iran) provinces.
  • However, the border remains ineffective in preventing the illicit movement of people and goods, especially along the land and maritime borders. Smuggling is common, especially in the south, closer to the Pakistan-Iran maritime border.
Strategic Importance
  • Gwadar in Pakistan and Chabahar in Iran, are situated on the mouths of the Arabian Sea less than 200 km apart.
  • China and India have invested in these two ports and see them as exit and entry points from/into maritime/mainland Asia.
  • Baloch provinces are strategically important for Iran and Pakistan; however, they remain in the political periphery and are alienated from the national capitals.
  • For the national capitals, the control of the provinces and the two ports is paramount.
Militants in Iran & Pakistan
  • In Pakistan, Iran targeted a relatively little-known Sunni militant group — “Jaish al-Adl,” based in Balochistan.
  • The Jundullah, believed to be founded by Abdolmalek Rigi, was present then in the Sistan-Baluchestan province and has repeatedly been targeting Iran’s security forces and civilian targets through terrorist activities, including suicide bombings.
  • Iran has been targeting the Jundullah leader; Rigi, a Baloch, was captured and executed in 2010.
  • In Iran, Pakistan targeted the hideouts belonging to the “Balochistan Liberation Army” and “Balochistan Liberation Front.”
  • Pakistan has been fighting multiple waves of Baloch insurgency since 1947. The latest wave of insurgency intensified after the killing of Akbar Bugti, one of the tallest Baloch leaders
Challenges
  • Though Tehran was one of the first to recognise Pakistan, since the 1979 Iranian revolution, the two countries had a troubled relationship.
  • Iran’s revolution in 1979 and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s regime in Pakistan during the 1980s brought the Sunni-Shia sectarian divide to the fore between the two. Though both refer to the “brotherly Muslim countries” rhetoric, the sectarian factor was too strong to patch the divide.
  • Globally, Iran saw Pakistan under the American sphere of influence during the Cold War and post 9/11, especially in Afghanistan. Pakistan and Iran remained in opposite groups; only in recent years has China tried to bring Islamabad and Tehran together.
  • And regionally, the struggle for supremacy, within the West Asia, pitches Iran and Saudi Arabia on opposite camps, with Pakistan aligned with the latter.
  • Economically, the bilateral relationship is not strong enough to create a political stake; the fact that Iran is planning to approach international arbitration for Pakistan’s reluctance to move ahead with the Iran-Pakistan pipeline should underline the harsh realities for Islamabad and Tehran.
Source- The Hindu

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