https://arab.news/jggrs
- Masoud Pezeshkian won the presidential election held after Ebrahim Raisi’s death in helicopter crash
- Pakistan and Iran have made peace overtures after exchanging airstrikes earlier this year in January
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office announced on Thursday Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will visit Iran on July 30 to attend the inauguration ceremony of President-elect Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian.
This will be Sharif’s second visit to Iran in three months, as he previously visited the neighboring state to offer condolences on the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May.
Earlier this month, voters in Iran gave a decisive win to reformist candidate Pezeshkian in the runoff election against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace Raisi.
Pezeshkian is now required to take an oath in Iranian parliament before assuming the office of the head of the state next week.
“At the invitation of the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, [Shehbaz] Sharif, will visit Tehran on 30 July to attend the inauguration ceremony of the President-elect of Iran, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian,” the foreign office spokesperson, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, informed during her weekly media briefing.
She said the visit demonstrated the dedication of both countries to enhancing high-level interactions and bilateral collaboration.
“The visit attests to the commitment by the two countries to strengthen leadership level engagements and bilateral cooperation,” Baloch said.
Pakistan and Iran have had a history of rocky relations despite several commercial pacts. Their highest profile agreement is a stalled gas supply deal signed in 2010 to build a pipeline from Iran’s Fars gas field to Pakistan’s southern provinces of Balochistan and Sindh.
Pakistan and Iran also find themselves at odds due to the instability along their shared porous border, with their leaders routinely trading blame after militant attacks in their respective territories.
Earlier this year in January, Pakistan and Iran exchanged airstrikes, with each government claiming to have targeted militant hideouts in the other country.
Both states have since made peace overtures and restored bilateral ties through multiple high-level visits.