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Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, left, and Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, right.
has paid an official visit to Iran to discuss
a raft of hot-button issues, including closer security cooperation and a joint fight against terrorism. During his talks in Tehran with his Iranian colleague
Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Afghan foreign minister said that a stable and secure Afghanistan was a strategically important factor in bilateral relations, and prioritized regular consultations and information exchanges between the two countries.
Meanwhile, the
security situation in Afghanistan keeps worsening with the eastern districts of
Paktia province being besieged by
Taliban and Daesh terrorists, and the strategic
Khanabad district in the country's northwestern
Kunduz province changing hands in continuous firefights between government forces and jihadist terrorists. The situation in western Afghanistan is equally worrisome with
anti-Iranian Daesh forces posing a serious threat to Tehran, which is now recruiting local Afghan refugees to fight the terrorist organization.
In an interview with Sputnik, Iranian political analyst Pirmohammad Mollazehi underscored the
all-importance of closer security exchanges between Iran and Afghanistan. "A stable Afghanistan holds the key to stability and peace in this whole region. The country is being threatened by the Taliban, which is trying to put entire regions under their control, and by Daesh which, faced with a potential defeat in Syria and Iraq,
could set its sights on Afghanistan, thus posing a serious threat also to Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan," Pirmohammad Mollazehi said.
He also said that the Daesh terrorists' main goal is to establish an
"Islamic Caliphate" that would spread from Russia's North Caucasus all the way to India. Fully aware of this, Tehran and Kabul must work closer together to restore peace and security in the war-torn Afghanistan.
Comment: It is only through cooperation and like-mindedness that coordinated action can be taken, issues resolved, threats dissolved. A territorial liaison of Iran and Afghanistan may well produce the necessary impetus to lessen and hopefully negate the threats by Daesh and its dream of an Islamic Caliphate, and, by the way, send the bill to the US, UK and Israel. They deserve it.