Summoning of the Pakistani Ambassador and Intensified Criticism from Iranian Officials towards Pakistan

Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran in response to the attack on a bus carrying members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Speaker of the Iranian Parliament warned Pakistan that failure to address armed opposition groups operating against the Islamic Republic on its soil would severely damage the level of cooperation between the two countries. Meanwhile, the military assistant to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic also implicitly warned that if these groups are not dealt with, Iranian military forces would attack them on Pakistani territory. According to Tasnim News Agency, on Sunday, February 17, Rafat Masood, the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran, was summoned by the assistant minister and director general for West Asia at the Foreign Ministry. During this meeting, Bahram Qasemi, the spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, stated that Pakistan was asked to take "swift and necessary actions" to identify and arrest those responsible for the attack on the IRGC bus. Qasemi also indicated that the Islamic Republic "expects the government and army of Pakistan to decisively and seriously confront the bases, movements, and presence of terrorist groups active in the border areas of this country with the Islamic Republic of Iran." Last Wednesday night, a suicide attack on a bus carrying IRGC personnel on the Khash-Zahedan route resulted in the deaths of at least 27 passengers and injuries to 13 others. The group "Jaish al-Adl" claimed responsibility for this attack. Several times after similar incidents in the border areas between Iran and Pakistan, Iran's Foreign Ministry has summoned the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran. Iranian officials have frequently criticized Pakistan's performance and called for actions from the Pakistani government to ensure the security of border areas with Iran, but usually, the Pakistani government has not responded to these warnings and criticisms. Meanwhile, Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Parliament, on Sunday, referred to the "design" of these attacks from Pakistani territory and warned that such events "seriously undermine the level of cooperation between the two countries." According to ISNA news agency, he urged the Pakistani government to be "accountable" regarding the presence of armed opposition groups against the Islamic Republic in Pakistan and to act "responsibly." The Speaker also called on the Foreign Ministry and Iran's security institutions to seriously address this issue. On May 7, 2017, Mohammad Hossein Baqeri had implicitly threatened that if this situation continued, Iran would attack these bases in Pakistani territory. Following these remarks, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador. Meanwhile, Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of the IRGC, threatened on Saturday that if Pakistan did not deal with armed groups opposing Iran on its territory, Iran would "punish" them itself. On Sunday, Yahya Rahim Safavi, the military assistant to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, stated: "The powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the ground forces of the IRGC consider it their right to act in their revolutionary mission to defend and secure Iran's borders and to suppress the perpetrators of these criminal terrorists." Rahim Safavi also claimed that armed groups opposing the Islamic Republic are funded by one of the Gulf countries, whose "crown prince is currently in Pakistan." Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, arrived in Pakistan on Sunday at the start of his trip to four Asian countries. The Pakistani government has prepared a grand ceremony to welcome the Saudi crown prince. Meanwhile, Mahmood Qureshi, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, described the relations between the two countries as strategic in an interview with Al-Hayat newspaper. He referred to the history of Saudi financial support for Pakistan, including that Saudi Arabia had previously accepted Pakistan's request to delay oil payments "to help prevent a crisis in trade transactions." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, attributed the attack on the IRGC bus to "the intelligence organizations of some regional and extra-regional countries." Previously, Iranian officials have repeatedly accused Saudi Arabia of supporting armed groups opposing the government in eastern and western Iran, but officials from that country have denied these claims. On Sunday, Heshamollah Falahatpisheh, the head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Parliament, stated that information related to the IRGC bus was provided to the attackers "in the form of intelligence espionage" and that they had "exploited infiltration." After several Iranian border guards were kidnapped in November by the Jaish al-Adl group, the Quds Corps of the IRGC issued an official statement identifying "the betrayal of infiltrators" as the cause of the incident.