Iran is following the Indian template in dealing with cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan, two strategic affairs analysts have said.
The comments of Ambassador (Retd) Anil Trigunayat, a distinguished fellow at one of India's top-most national think tanks, the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF), and Dr. Ashok K. Behuria, senior Fellow, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) came in the wake of a mounting diplomatic tiff between Iran and Pakistan.
Islamabad-Tehran Conduct Precision Strikes in Each Other’s Territories
Ties between the Islamic Republic and the Sunni-majority sovereign state nosedived on Tuesday after Iran launched missiles on two sanctuaries of Jaish al-Adl.
It is a terrorist outfit based in Pakistan, often blamed by Iranian authorities for carrying out attacks against the country's security forces that guard its porous border with the neighboring nation.
Subsequently, Islamabad on Thursday conducted "precision military strikes" in Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan, which it said targeted the terrorist camps of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF).
India Comes Out in Support of Iran
While New Delhi was yet to react to Pakistan's combat operation in Iran, it did back Tehran saying that such actions are sometimes taken in self-defence.
"Insofar as India is concerned, we have an uncompromising position of zero tolerance towards terrorism. We understand actions that countries take in their self-defence," the Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Randhir Jaiswal underlined in a statement.
In this context, Trigunayat stated that India fights cross-border terrorism from its western neighbor and hence India understood the Panjgur operation by the Iranians.
Iranian Approach Similar to India’s in Tackling Cross-Border Terror
"It is imperative for nations to defend themselves against terror attacks. Also, it is equally important that countries should not use terrorism as an instrument of their policy which unfortunately some countries do," the former Indian envoy to Jordan, Libya, and Malta told Sputnik India on Thursday.
On the other hand, Behuria maintained that India also has a similar approach towards insurgency, and terrorism, which is being directed at it from Pakistani soil.
For instance, he recalled that New Delhi had resorted to operations like the Balakot airstrikes, and surgical strikes when Pakistani terrorists attacked its soldiers a few years ago.
"So this is well in line with the stance India is taking vis-a-vis a neighbor that is spreading terror in its vicinity. Accordingly, Iran is doing a similar kind of a thing as it is almost a surgical strike, which Tehran has resorted to in Balochistan," the think tanker said in a conversation with Sputnik India.
He reckoned that there was a meeting of strategies between India and Iran as far as dealing with terrorism emanating from foreign soil was concerned. That commonality was there and that is why India perhaps agreed with the Iranian attacks on members of the Pakistan-based terrorist organization.