Iran and Pakistan Are Patching Up Ties but Ignoring the Hard Part
Iran and Pakistan have historically shared close but often tense relations. This past year has seen a high point in bilateral tensions, with the two neighbors accusing each other of harboring armed Baloch insurgent groups on either side of their border. Tehran and Islamabad now aspire to normalize their ties given the shifting geopolitical landscapes for both sides, as well as mutual economic interests. Despite their efforts, however, complete resolution of residual tensions from the border situation is unlikely, as Baloch aspirations for autonomy combined with poverty in the border region will continue to hamper implementation of effective measures.
The 560-mile border between Iran and Pakistan is porous, and the ethnic tensions in the Baloch region that spans both sides of it—approximately the size of France—has led to mutual accusations of fostering Baloch separatism. In early 2024, Iran accused Pakistan of sheltering Jaish al-Adl, a Baloch Sunni militant separatist organization that Tehran blamed for terrorist attacks on Iranian soil on Jan. 3, while Pakistan responded with claims of Iranian support for Baloch separatists within its borders.
These back-and-forth in accusations set the stage for a tit-for-tat exchange of military strikes beginning Jan. 17, when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted two locations in Pakistani territory near Iran’s border city of Saravan with missiles. The following day, Pakistan’s military responded with targeted strikes into Iran.
Diplomatic efforts in the immediate aftermath of the exchange of fire prevented the violence from escalating further, but did less to de-escalate the underlying tensions. Then-Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reached out to his Pakistani counterpart, former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. However, Pakistan responded by downgrading diplomatic ties, recalling its ambassador from Tehran and urging the Iranian ambassador to leave Islamabad.
Since then, delicate diplomacy and careful crisis management have prevented further violence in an already volatile region. Fear of war on both sides also served as an important factor in preventing escalation. But it was wider geopolitical as well as economic considerations that ultimately helped diffuse the situation, and these considerations are now pushing Tehran and Islamabad to seek even closer ties.
Improved Relations
The January 2024 crisis was followed by the visit to Islamabad the following April of then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Pakistan to dial down the tensions. The two countries agreed to station liaison officers at their mutual border to coordinate counterterrorism efforts. Raisi’s death in May 2024 and Tehran’s spiraling tensions with Israel since October 2023 subsequently weakened the momentum behind the normalization. But in the past two months, the diplomatic pace has quickened.
In early November, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi visited Pakistan, where he held meetings with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Gen. Asim Munir. This was followed by a visit by Iran’s deputy minister of defense to Islamabad for meetings with his Pakistani counterparts on security and military affairs. Most recently, on Dec. 2, Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, attended a meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organization in Mashhad, Iran, where he held side meetings with an Iranian delegation.
The shift from tensions to normalization is in part dictated by the shifting geopolitical dynamics in the region. Iran’s thaw in ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states is a major influence on Pakistan, which counts Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as major investors; indeed, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi recently pledged to invest $50 billion in Pakistan over five years. Islamabad can also ill afford a major confrontation or even persisting tensions with Tehran, given its long-standing tensions with India and unstable ties with the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Iran’s urgent preoccupations over the past year have been containing the damage from the battering Israel has inflicted on the Tehran-backed axis of resistance, and improving deteriorated ties with the West over its nuclear program. Iran’s distraction will only intensify given the recent events in Syria, where its ally, former President Bashar al-Assad, has just been ousted by a lightning rebel offensive, further complicating Tehran’s regional picture. Under these circumstances, the Islamic Republic could not allow tensions with Pakistan to persist.
Internal dynamics have also shaped Iran’s and Pakistan’s behavior. The Islamic Republic is facing severe internal strain due to widespread social, political and economic grievances, particularly in its eastern provinces near the border. For its part, Pakistan is facing its own set of domestic challenges, including a range of insurgencies, a long-standing economic crisis and political instability under its latest government, which was installed earlier this year.
Expelling militants will do little to increase border security if Tehran and Islamabad don’t promote economic development across their respective Baloch regions, which are among the poorest in both countries.
The two countries also share important economic interdependencies and linkages. The current value of bilateral commerce stands at roughly $2.5 billion per year. In their meeting in August 2023, both countries’ then-foreign ministers set a target to boost formal bilateral trade to $5 billion. In April 2024, they raised that target even further, to $10 billion within the next five years, and signed eight agreements and memorandums of understanding across various sectors toward that end.
Energy ties, in particular, shore up bilateral economic linkages. Iranian oil—much of it smuggled into the country, sometimes to the benefit of Baloch separatist groups—accounts for 14 percent of Pakistan’s domestic consumption of gas and diesel. Iran also supplies electricity to three districts—Kech, Gwadar and Panjgur—in Pakistani Balochistan. Moreover, Pakistan announced in February that it would begin building a 50-mile section of a long-stalled gas pipeline running from the Iranian border to the port in Gwadar, at an expected cost of $158 million.
This economic interdependence is a further incentive for both sides to find a long-term solution to the problem of border instability, while preventing any escalation in the near term. That said, the border crisis between Iran and Pakistan is unlikely to be fully resolved.
One possibility would be the mutual expulsion of militants from both sides of the border. But so far there has not been any suggestion that doing so is currently part of any bilateral discussions. Moreover, expelling militants will do little to increase border security if Tehran and Islamabad don’t promote economic development across their respective Baloch regions, which are among the poorest in both countries. Though Pakistan’s Balochistan province has seen whopping investments from China in recent years, the benefits from them have not yet trickled down to the local population enough to alleviate their economic conditions. And Iran’s dire straits as a result of economic troubles and U.S. sanctions has exacerbated the neglect with which it has historically treated the region on its side of the border.
All this means that insecurity will remain a persistent feature of the border region. Indeed, Jaish al-Adl carried out a deadly assault in Iran as recently as October, resulting in the deaths of 10 Iranian police officers. In another incident, a militant attack on Nov. 10 killed five members of Iran’s Basij paramilitary volunteer force. Without improved conditions in both sides’ respective Baloch regions, it will require a constant effort to prevent incidents from escalating.
Emil Avdaliani is a professor at European University and the director of Middle East studies at the Georgian think tank Geocase.