BEIJING: China urged Pakistan and Iran on Wednesday to show “restraint”, after Islamabad said Tehran had carried out an air strike on its territory that killed two children.
“We call on both sides to exercise restraint, avoid actions that would lead to an escalation of tension and work together to maintain peace and stability,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular briefing.
“We consider both Iran and Pakistan as close neighbours and major Islamic countries,” she said. Both Iran and Pakistan are close partners of Beijing and members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Pakistan denounced the strike, near the nations’ shared border late on Tuesday, as “completely unacceptable”, saying it was unprovoked.
Iran offered no immediate official comment but its state-run Nour News agency said the attack destroyed the Pakistan headquarters of the militant group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice). Formed in 2012, Jaish al-Adl is blacklisted by Iran as a terrorist group and has carried out several attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.
The strike came after Iran launched missile attacks on “spy headquarters” and “terrorist” targets in Syria, and in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
The Iranian strikes add to multiple crises across the Middle East, with Israel waging a war against Hamas in Gaza and pro-Palestinian Huthi rebels in Yemen attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
The drone strikes
A day earlier, an Iranian drone and missile strike on targets, which Tehran described as bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl, in the Panjgur district of Balochistan killed two “innocent children” and wounded three girls, Iranian state media and Foreign Office (FO) in Islamabad said.
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Pakistan condemned the attack, describing it an “unprovoked violation” of the Pakistani airspace, and warned Tehran of serious consequences. The FO said in a late-night statement that the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty was completely unacceptable.
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