Iranian Lawmaker Suggests Closing Taliban Embassy Over Water Dispute

Fada-Hossein Maleki, a member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee
Fada-Hossein Maleki, a member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee

Amid tensions with Afghanistan over water, an Iranian lawmaker has suggested “non-diplomatic ways” to exert pressure on the Taliban, such as closing its Tehran embassy. 

Fada-Hossein Maleki, a member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said Sunday that a taskforce within the Supreme National Security Council is mulling over new measures to secure Iran’s share of water from Hirmand river, including closing the Taliban embassy and reducing political, commercial, and economic interactions through various means. 

“We have many tools at our disposal that we can utilize for these purposes,” he noted.

Calling for stricter measures, Maleki said that considering the current position that the Taliban holds, Iran should not excessively appease them. “We have given them whatever they wanted, even compromising the relations between our Persian and Pashto speaking friends, who say demands by the Taliban are being accommodated one after another by Iran,” he said. 

“We are witnessing a distressing situation in the Sistan and Baluchestan region, where villages are gradually becoming deserted,” he stressed, adding that the people of the province are facing imminent dangers and the first concrete step to address their grievances is to solve the water issue.

Flowing 700 miles, Hirmand -- which is called Helmand on the Afghan side -- enters Iran's Hamoun wetlands in the Sistan-Baluchestan province after originating in the Hindu Kush Mountains near Kabul. Lake Hamoun used to be one of the world's largest wetlands, straddling 4,000 square kilometers between Iran and Afghanistan.

The river, which both Afghanistan and Iran depend on for agriculture and drinking water, has been the biggest source of tension for years.

Iran has accused Afghanistan of restricting the flow of water from the river by building dams over it, a charge that Afghan authorities deny.

This comes as in the past few weeks, numerous reports have been published about water shortages in different regions of Iran, especially the Sistan and Baluchestan province.