Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul Haq Kakar will chair a meeting of the National Security Committee, with all the military services chiefs in attendance.
Pakistani warplanes launched air strikes early on January 18 on alleged militant targets in Iran, an attack that Tehran said killed at least nine people, including six children and two women.
Jilani, who is heading the Foreign Ministry as part of caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar’s government, told his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, during a call on January 19 that Pakistan targeted “terrorist camps” belonging to Baluch separatists “inside Iran.”
“Pakistan has no interest or desire in escalation,” Jilani said, according to a short statement issued by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry after the call.
The strikes in Sistan-Baluchistan Province came after an attack by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province on January 16 that killed two children. Tehran said it targeted the Sunni Baluch militant group Jaish al-Adl, which is designated as a terrorist entity by both Iran and the United States.
Jilani’s comment comes as Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), which brings together the country’s top civilian and military figures, is set to convene a meeting on January 19 to discuss the standoff with Iran.
On January 18, Fidan spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who expressed his country’s desire to “expand relations with neighboring countries.
