Iran summons Pakistan's chargé d'affaires to protest air strike

The Iranian foreign ministry summoned on Thursday Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires to protest against the recent missile attack, state-owned Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani as saying.

The summon comes after Pakistan said it undertook a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against what it called terrorist hideouts in Siestan-o-Baluchistan province of Iran.

“A number of terrorists were killed during the Intelligence-based operation – codenamed ‘Marg Bar Sarmachar’,” Pakistan’s Foreign Office said in a press release issued early on Thursday.

Following the missile attack from Pakistan, nine, including three women, four children and two men who had not had Iranian nationality were killed, IRNA said.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the target of the cross-border airstrikes on Tuesday night were “Iranian terrorists present on Pakistani soil”.

“We targeted Jaish al-Adl, not Pakistani citizens,” IRNA had quoted him as saying.

The strike by Pakistan comes a day after Iran’s violation of its airspace which killed two children and injured three girls.