FM call on Afghanistan to let in experts visit Hirmand
Iranian foreign minister has reiterated calls on the Afghan government to allow an Iranian technical team to inspect the dam built on the Hirmand River on Afghan soil.
MEHR: Iranian foreign minister has reiterated calls on the Afghan government to allow an Iranian technical team to inspect the dam built on the Hirmand River on Afghan soil.
Hossein Amir Abdollahian, who visited Chabahar in Sistan and Baluchestan Province in the southeast on the shared border with Afghanistan on Thursday night for following up on Iran's water rights in Hirmand, said in a tweet on Thursday night that despite frequent calls from Iran, the Taliban government in Afghanistan has not yet allowed Iranian experts to inspect the dam built on the Hirmand River.
"In recent months, I repeatedly asked the acting foreign minister of Afghanistan, Mulla [Amir Khan] Mattaqi, to fulfill his obligations according to the Hirmand Treaty and make it possible for technical teams' visit to measure the amount of water, which they did not," the Iranian foreign minister wrote in his post on his Twitter account.
"Sistan is suffering from drought. The criteria to assess the presence and absence of water [in the river] is a technical and objective visit and not making a political statement," he wrote.
On the visit to the southeastern Province of Sistan and Baluchestan, the Iranian foreign minister held a telephone conversation with the Taliban foreign minister Wednesday, stressing that taking practical steps to release water in the Hirmand River to flow towards Iran is a serious demand of Tehran.
Furthermore, President Ayatollah Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, who started a visit to Sistan and Baluchistan on Thursday, said about Hirmand's water rights there, "I warn the rulers of Afghanistan to give the water rights to the people of Sistan and Baluchistan immediately. If our experts confirm the lack of water, we have nothing else to say, otherwise, we will not allow the rights of our people to be violated and this issue is not related to a specific period."
Previously, President Raeisi had instructed foreign and energy ministers to seriously pursue the country's water rights from the Hirmand River.
Afghanistan has blamed climatic factors for the reduction in the amount of water in the shared river Hirmand that flows towards Iran.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Space Agency has said in a statement that it has learned through the images from its Khayyam satellite that the Afghanistan government is diverting the flow of the Hirmand River, denying Iran of its water share.
