Islamabad calls off Iranian minister’s visit — again

FO cites Rehman Malik’s ‘engagements’ as reason for cancelled trip.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan has yet again cancelled a scheduled visit of Iranian Interior Minister Mustafa Najar to Islamabad, highly placed sources told The Express Tribune.

Najar was due to arrive in Pakistan on May 16 at the invitation of Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

A delegation of the Iranian ministry, led by its deputy minister, returned to Tehran from Islamabad just two days before Najar’s scheduled visit.

The ministry of foreign affairs told the deputy minister that Najar should cancel his trip owing to Rehman Malik’s pressing engagements within the country.

A similar visit by Najar, scheduled for May 11, was cancelled at the eleventh hour when Malik had to rush to Saudi Arabia following the US-led raid in Abbottabad that killed former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden on May 2.

However, the plan was rescheduled for May 16 by Islamabad, but that too could not materialise due to the Bin Laden debacle.

Najar was scheduled to visit Pakistan to discuss a variety of issues. The key issue on the Iranian minister’s agenda, however, was the alleged Pakistani support for the Sunni extremist outfit Jundullah and the cross-border drug trafficking and smuggling.

Dissatisfied with Pakistan’s cooperation against terrorism, Iran is continuously demanding of Islamabad to “do more”, sources told The Express Tribune.

Malik visited Tehran last month as a special envoy of President Asif Ali Zardari, where he held meetings with the Iranian foreign minister and his Iranian counterpart.

Border security arrangements between the two countries and the anti-Iranian activities by its native Baloch organisation, the Jundullah, whom Tehran declared a terrorist group, also came under discussion.

Tehran is perturbed over what it described as “limited” cooperation extended by Islamabad to diminish Jundullah over the years.

Pakistani officials claim that they have arrested and handed over more than 100 Jundullah activists, including its chief Abdul Malik Regi and his brother Abdul Majid Regi, to Tehran.

Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi recently announced that his government plans to build a concrete security fence along its border with Pakistan to prevent border-crossing by terrorists and drug traffickers.

According to the Foreign Policy Journal of Tehran, Najar has reportedly called on Pakistan to step up efforts in disrupting Jundullah’s safe haven in Pakistan.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2011.