Calm has returned to the border area between Iran and Afghanistan after clashes that took place earlier on Saturday, an official in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province stated.






Alireza Marhamati, who is the deputy governor of Sistan and Baluchistan for security and law enforcement affairs, made the announcement on Saturday night.

He said that the situation is under the control of forces deployed at the border area between Iran and Afghanistan.

He also said that local Iranian and Afghan officials have held negotiations on the cause of the clashes, and agreed to continue their talks.

The clashes took place between Iranian border guards and Taliban forces on Saturday morning at the Sasuli border post, located in Iran's Zabol county.

Two Iranian border guards were martyred as a result.

A spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry, Abdul Nafi Takor, also said one Taliban guard was killed in the clashes with Iranian forces in the Afghan province of Nimroz.

Tensions have escalated between the two neighbors in recent months over the Taliban government’s failure to honor a 1973 water-sharing treaty, with Iranian authorities saying that the Taliban are restricting the flow of water from the Helmand River to Iran's arid eastern regions.

By IRNA