Shabaz Sharif
SENIOR MEMBER
![](/styles/default/xenforo/ranks/Lt.Colonel.jpg)
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2006
- Messages
- 4,000
- Reaction score
- -15
- Country
- Location
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Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli (L) speaks as his Pakistani counterpart Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan looks on during a joint press conference in Islamabad. -AFP Photo
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tuesday strongly denied that kidnapped Iranian border guards were ever on its soil, amid fresh efforts to improve fractured ties before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit to Tehran.
Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan denied the abducted men had ever crossed the border.
“Let me reiterate very categorically that those five Iranian guards were never ever present in Pakistan,” he said.
“So the question of fifth one being in Pakistan is out of question.”
Khan was speaking at a joint press conference in Islamabad with his Iranian counterpart, Abdolereza Rahmani Fazli.
Fazli arrived in Islamabad Sunday on an official visit ahead of Sharif's two-day trip to Tehran which begins on Sunday.
Fazli, who in March issued a veiled warning to Pakistan over the abduction, said Tehran had given Islamabad “images and documentation regarding terrorist activities” of the group involved.
The two sides have agreed to set up a hotline between Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps and Iran's Border Security Force, Khan said.
Relations between the neighbours hit a low following the kidnapping by Sunni extremists of five Iranian border guards from Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province, which adjoins Pakistan, in February.
Four of the soldiers were eventually freed and returned home in April. Officials say the fate of the fifth soldier is unknown but he is assumed to have been killed.
Nisar denies kidnapped Iranian guards ever on Pakistani soil - Pakistan - DAWN.COM