Iran’s amb. to Afghanistan:

Taliban attack on Afghan Farah city 'not a war on water '

Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan has said that Iran is not worried about constructing ‘Salma Dam’ in Afghanistan, rejecting the claims Iran was involved in Taliban attack on Farah city.

News ID: 70273

Date: 21 May 2018 - 11:33

TEHRAN (Defapress)– Hamid Reza Bahrami made the remarks in an interview with Afghanistan ‘Tolo News ’ TV channel on Sunday evening.

“When there are agreements between two countries to govern bilateral relations, there is no need to worry,” Bahrami stressed.

In reaction to the claims that say the recent Taliban attack on Farah city was ‘a war over water’, he said "Iran and Afghanistan have no issues that they cannot have negotiations on," he said, adding “according to the agreements, all the issues in the two countries' relations in the political, security, social, cultural and economic fields are negotiable and there is a will on both sides to discuss problems or disagreements.”

Bahrami went on to stress that a large part of the cement and concrete needed to build the ‘Salma Dam’ was provided by Iran and the contractor working on the dam project in cooperation with an Indian company is Iranian.

The Iran's ambassador emphasized "if Iran really had opposed the construction of the Salma Dam, it would not have allowed the cement to be delivered.”

He referred to creating an atmosphere of Iranophobia by some enemies, adding "this atmoshphere is aimed at preventing any breakthrough in the relations between the two countries of Iran and Afghanistan.”

He added that instability in Farah is not only detrimental to the mutual interests of Iran and Afghanistan, but also to Iran's own interests.

“Naturally, any instability in Farah province will lead to the deployment of foreign troops in Farah province, which is not in the interest of Iran,” he added.

Any kind of instability in Farah province also means immigration from this province to Iran’s border provinces, which is not to the advantage of Iran.

Bahrami said that about one-third of the volume of Iran-Afghanistan trade is carried out through Farah province, and any instability would harm the people on both sides of the border.

In response to a claim that Iran has relations with the Taliban and the Taliban attacked Farah in coordination with Iran, Bahrami said “the Taliban has attacked many parts of the country not only Farah. Does that mean that the group have been coordinating all their attack on other places with Iran?”

Iran's ambassador added "we have explicitly stated that we have contacts with the Taliban and have not transformed these contacts into relations because we did not want to legitimize the Taliban and we explicitly stated that the purpose of these contacts is to encourage them to join the peace process with the Afghan government."

Bahrami reminded that all countries in the region are in contact with the Taliban.

"Insecurity on the common border has been damaging our country and this is not what Iran wants because it will never benefit from it,” the Iranian ambassador concluded.

Message end/