KARACHI: The Pakistani foreign office said on Thursday the country’s embassy in Tehran was in close contact with Iranian authorities since they closed the border with Pakistan due to rising COVID-19 cases in a frontier town.
The Iran–Pakistan border is around 1,000 kilometers long and demarcates Pakistan’s Balochistan province from Iran’s Sistan and Balochistan Province.
“The Iranian side has closed border due to high prevalence of COVID in Zahedan,” Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, the spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign office, told Arab News, referring to the city and capital of Sistan and Balochistan Province. “The Embassy of Pakistan in Tehran is in close contact with Iranian authorities on this issue.”
Deputy Commissioner of the border town of Chagai, Agha Sher Zaman, said the border was closed only for Pakistani citizens who wanted to visit Iran while those who wished to return home could do so — provided they had received a negative coronavirus test 48 hours prior to travel, and after they had fulfilled other prerequisites determined by the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), Pakistan’s federal pandemic response body.
The border, Zaman said, was also open for trade and for Iranian citizens wanting to return to their country: “Iranian citizens also have to have a negative test to travel back home.”
The deputy commissioner said Pakistani citizens coming from Iran were screened and tested at the border and allowed to enter Pakistan only after they tested negative for the coronavirus. Those diagnosed with the disease were quarantined, he said.
Pakistan completely closed its border with Iran on February 24, 2020 after a coronavirus outbreak in the neighboring country that month. However, the Taftan border was reopened in June last year, followed by the reopening of all five border crossing points for trade.
Pakistan says in contact with Iran after Tehran closes border over rising COVID-19 cases
https://arab.news/g24ca
Pakistan says in contact with Iran after Tehran closes border over rising COVID-19 cases
- Tehran has closed border with Pakistan due to high prevalence of coronavirus in Zahedan, capital of Sistan and Balochistan Province
- Border closed only for Pakistani citizens who wanted to visit Iran, those returning home can do so with negative COVID-19 test
Imran Khan’s party shutdown draws mixed response; government calls it ‘ineffective’
- Ex-PM Khan’s PTI party had called for a ‘shutter-down strike’ to protest Feb. 8, 2024 general election results
- While businesses reportedly remained closed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they continued as normal elsewhere
ISLAMABAD: A nationwide “shutter-down strike” called by former prime minister Imran Khan’s party drew a mixed response in Pakistan on Sunday, underscoring political polarization in the country two years after a controversial general election.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PIT) opposition party had urged the masses to shut businesses across the country to protest alleged rigging on the second anniversary of the Feb. 8, 2024 general election.
Local media reported a majority of businesses remained closed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, governed by the PTI, while business continued as normal in other provinces as several trade associations distanced themselves from the strike call.
Arab News visited major markets in Islamabad’s G-6, G-9, I-8 and F-6 sectors, as well as commercial hubs in Rawalpindi, which largely remained operational on Sunday, a public holiday when shops, restaurants and malls typically remain open in Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s constitution says people will elect their representatives. But on 8th February 2024, people were barred from exercising their voting right freely,” Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri, the PTI opposition leader in the Senate, said at a protest march near Islamabad’s iconic Faisal Mosque.
Millions of Pakistanis voted for national and provincial candidates during the Feb. 8, 2024 election, which was marred by a nationwide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by the PTI and other opposition parties. The caretaker government at the time and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) both rejected the allegations.
Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The government insists the polling was conducted transparently and that Khan’s party was not denied a fair chance.
Authorities in the Pakistani capital deployed a heavy police contingent on the main road leading to the Faisal Mosque on Sunday. Despite police presence and the reported arrest of some PTI workers, Jafri led local PTI members and dozens of supporters who chanted slogans against the government at the march.
“We promise we will never forget 8th February,” Jafri said.
The PTI said its strike call was “successful” and shared videos on official social media accounts showing closed shops and markets in various parts of the country.
The government, however, dismissed the protest as “ineffective.”
“The public is fed up with protest politics and has strongly rejected PTI’s call,” Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on X.
“It’s Sunday, yet there is still hustle and bustle.”
Ajmal Baloch, All Pakistan Traders Association president, said they neither support such protest calls, nor prevent individuals from closing shops based on personal political affiliation.
“It’s a call from a political party and we do not close businesses on calls of any political party,” Baloch told Arab News.
“We only give calls of strike on issues related to traders.”
Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 after what is widely believed to be a falling out with the country’s powerful generals. The army denies it interferes in politics. Khan has been in prison since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal challenges that ruled him out of the Feb. 8 general elections and which he says are politically motivated to keep him and his party away from power.
In Jan. 2025, an accountability court convicted Khan and his wife in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust land corruption case, sentencing him to 14 years and her to seven years after finding that the trust was used to acquire land and funds in exchange for alleged favors. The couple denies any wrongdoing.
