Iran, Pakistan envoys to resume duties this week as tensions de-escalate

Iran and Pakistan have announced that their ambassadors would resume their duties after the two countries agreed to de-escalate tensions following an exchange of deadly strikes last week.

"It has been mutually agreed that the ambassadors of both countries may return to their respective posts by January 26," said a joint statement by the foreign ministries in Tehran and Islamabad on Monday.

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian is also due to visit Pakistan on January 29 following an invitation from his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas Jilani, the statement said.

The decisions were announced following a phone call between Jilani and Amirabdollahian.

Pakistan launched on Thursday air strikes on "militant targets" in Iran, two days after similar Iranian strikes on its territory.

'De-escalation'

Tehran said its strikes in Pakistan targeted Jaish al Adl, a group which has carried out a spate of deadly attacks in Iran in recent months.

The Iranian strikes, which killed at least two children, drew a sharp rebuke from Pakistan, which recalled its ambassador from Tehran and blocked Iran's envoy from returning to Islamabad.

Tehran also summoned Islamabad's charge d'affaires over Pakistan's strikes on Thursday, which left at least nine people killed.

On Friday, Jilani and AmirAbdollahian agreed in a phone conversation "to de-escalate the situation" between the two countries.

Last week's rare military actions in the porous border region of Balochistan split between the two nations had stoked regional tensions already inflamed by Israel's war on Gaza.

Sistan-Baluchestan is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shia-dominated Iran.

It has seen persistent unrest involving cross-border drug-smuggling gangs and rebels from the Balochi ethnic minority.