Iran’s Foreign Ministry:

Terrorists seek to destabilize Pakistan

Rasa - Iran has denounced a terrorist attack in a Shia area in northwest Pakistan, warning that terrorists seek to undermine peace and instigate instability in the country.

News ID: 3685

Date: 16 December 2015 - 04:35

RNA - Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said on Monday that such measures are carried out to serve the “ominous purposes of enemies of the Pakistani nation and the Muslim world.”

The spokesperson expressed hope that Pakistan would adopt policies and strategies that would prevent the recurrence of such terrorist attacks.

He also extended Iran’s condolences to the Pakistani people, government and the bereaved families of the victims over the tragic attack.

At least 23 people were killed and about 50 others wounded after a bomb went off at a used clothes market in Pakistan’s Parachinar district on Sunday.

The market was full of people shopping for clothes at the time of the blast.

Parachinar is the capital of Kurram, which is considered a sensitive tribal area, as it borders three Afghan provinces. It was once one of the key routes for the movement of militants across the border.

The attack took place as Pakistan has been engaged in a major offensive against militant hideouts across the troubled northwestern tribal regions since June 2014, when a deadly raid on the Karachi International Airport ended the government’s peace talks with the pro-Taliban militants.

Pakistan’s army also intensified its military operations after militants killed over 150 people, most of them children, in an armed assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014.

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