Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, reportedly instructed the Iranian Foreign and Energy ministries to work toward reclaiming Iran’s water right in the Helmand River, declaring that Iran would not “hesitate to pursue the rights of the nation in any way.”
According to Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, the Iranian president gave the two ministries specific instructions to look into alternate options for supplying Sistan and Balouchestan with drinking water, during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The Taliban’s verbal agreement to provide Iran with water from the Helmand River was hailed by Iran’s Minister of Energy as a positive development, but he also highlighted that Tehran needs more than just a verbal agreement.
Ali Akbar Mehrabiyan, the energy minister for Iran, told reporters after the cabinet meeting that he will travel to Afghanistan to discuss the issue of shared water resources with Afghan Taliban officials.
Afghanistan’s disregard for the pact has drawn repeated criticism from Iran.
However, earlier, a Taliban official told the BBC that Iran demands more from the Helmand River than it is entitled to and that it is putting pressure on the Taliban to reach this end.
The Taliban administration in Kabul declared in January that water from the Kamal Khan Dam had been released for the first time in decades, later on, though, Iranian officials voiced their displeasure with the quantity of water that had reached.
