Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has called for enhanced security cooperation with Iran amid the escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel following the Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria, the South Asian nation's Presidential Office said in a statement on Thursday.
President Zardari, who telephoned his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, also "offered his heartfelt condolences" to Iran's leadership for the killing of the Shiite-majority sovereign state's seven high-ranking military officers.
"He underlined the need to enhance the exchange of information to overcome the security challenges being faced by the two countries," the statement from Zardari's office said on Thursday evening.
Israel's attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria's capital left two of the country's most decorated generals dead besides eliminating five military advisors.
Among the dead was Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran's elite multi-service branch which is mainly associated with both covert and overt missions abroad.
Zahedi, who also served as the chief of IRGC's air and ground operations in the past, is the most decorated Iranian figure to be killed in an airstrike carried out by a Western-allied nation.
In 2020, the US assassinated the then-IRGC head, General Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike in Iraq.
Following the escalation in tensions, Iran warned Tel Aviv and its closest ally, the US, of a "decisive response" to avenge the attack on its diplomatic mission in Syria.
"The consulate and embassy offices in any country are considered to be the territory of that country. When they attack our consulate, it means they have attacked our territory. The Zionist regime made a mistake and must be punished and will be punished," Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday.