Dispute over water rights
Two dead in clashes at Iran-Afghan border
Two people were shot dead in a shootout at the Iranian-Afghan border (symbol image)
© Pacific Press Agency / Imago Images
Two people have been killed in a firefight on the Afghanistan-Iran border. The background to the argument was a dispute over water.
Clashes erupted at the Iran-Afghanistan border on Saturday amid a dispute over water rights. According to the Taliban ruling in Kabul, two people were killed. The Iranian authorities only confirmed the incident without giving any information about the victims. According to the Iranian news agency “More”, an Iranian border guard was killed.
Both sides accused each other of having fired the first shots. “One person was killed on each side,” the Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman said on Twitter. The situation in the southwestern province of Nimros is now under control. “The Islamic Emirate does not want a war with its neighbor,” said the spokesman, who used the Taliban government’s name for Afghanistan.
Iran and Afghanistan are fighting over water
Tehran and Kabul maintain diplomatic relations, but Iran does not recognize the government in Afghanistan. Relations were recently tense because of a dispute over water. Last week, Iran asked Afghanistan to respect its “water rights.” Tehran accused Kabul of using a dam in Afghanistan to limit the amount of water flowing into a lake on the shared border.
During a visit to the south-east of his country on May 18, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi called on the Afghan leadership “to immediately fulfill the right of the people of Sistan-Baluchistan to water”.
The Helmand River flows from the mountains of the central Afghan province of the same name over a distance of more than 1000 kilometers into Lake Hamun on the border. Afghanistan blames climatic factors for the reduced amount of water.
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Iran insists its share was agreed by both countries in a 1973 treaty, and is demanding that the Taliban honor the agreement. Tehran said last week that it would take action to settle the dispute.