Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Hamid Tahmasi

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs said that Iran has a perfect understanding with the Afghan side on the issue of the Harirud incident and that there is no difference of opinion.

Iran Press/Asia: "We had good talks with our Afghan brothers in Kabul, including Acting Foreign Minister Hanif Atmar, Chairman of the High Council for Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah, and the Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs Hamid Tahmasi, Deputy Chairman of the Afghan National Security Council and Chairman of the Afghan delegation, on the border incident.", Mohsen Baharvand said in Kabul on Wednesday.

Baharvand added: "Our border guards and diplomats conducted a serious investigation into what happened on May 2 on the Afghan-Iranian border near the Harirud River."

He said: "Our investigations show that the Iranian border guards had not been involved in this matter in any way."

According to the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, the Afghan authorities also interviewed those who survived the incident. "We agreed with our Afghan brothers in three cases," he said.

"First, we will look at the evidence that the Afghans recorded in these interviews. If we find that the evidence shows any fault, we will leave it to the relevant authorities to investigate," Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs added.

In the second phase, he said, the Iranian side will work together with Afghans to prevent the same incidents from happening in the future.

"This means that we will prevent human trafficking and illegal commute, and then, in the third phase, we will try to legalize the commute of Afghan citizens to the Islamic Republic of Iran," Baharvand added.

He continued: "We have agreements on the legal commute of Afghans that need to be updated so that people do not have to be trapped by human traffickers and find themselves in dangerous paths."

"I urge our Afghan brothers and sisters to try not to fall into the trap of smugglers, as they will cross dangerous paths and put them at risk," he said.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister said: "In the next phase, we will have other talks with Afghans to legally deal with those who are looking for work in Iran to come to Iran legally, and we will try to prevent recurrence of these incidents in the future."

The head of the Iranian delegation added: "Although the work on this issue is not over, we do not have a serious disagreement and we have a perfect understanding with our Afghan brothers."

Dozens of illegal Afghan migrants were killed on May 2 on the Iranian-Afghan border, and a number of others went missing.

The migrants claimed that Iranian border guards had forced them to cross the Harirud River, but Iran strongly denied the claim, saying the incident took place on Afghan soil.

101/214

Read More:

Iran, Afghan officials discuss border incident

Iran, Afghanistan confer on border incident

Iran, Afghanistan trading returns to normal