The Foreign Ministry of the Taliban government announced Sunday that an Iranian technical delegation has inspected the water situation in the Helmand River, amid an ongoing dispute over water rights between both countries.
“Iranian experts have observed the water levels in the Helmand River,” Iranian news agencies cited the country’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, as saying.
Qomi said the delegation is currently in Kabul and will soon share its assessment with Tehran.
It is the first time Iranian experts visit the Deh Rawood hydrometric station of the Helmand River to inspect the water level.
Later, the Foreign Ministry of the Taliban government said in a statement that an Iranian technical delegation visited the Deh Rawood hydrometric station to analyze the level of water.
“After the observation, the Iranian delegation found that the Helmand River has a minimum water flow and its tributaries are completely dry and only flow in flood situations. Therefore, it has become very difficult for Helmand River water to reach the delta area [in Iran],” the statement said.
Also, based on the analysis, it can be clearly seen that no human act is involved in the water flow decrease to Iran, the statement read.
The state-run ISNA news agency quoted an official at the Iranian Energy Ministry as saying that since the two countries signed an agreement to share water in 1973, it was the first time a team of Iranian experts visited a station at the Helmand River.
Iran signed an agreement in 1973 for Afghanistan to supply a stipulated amount of water in “normal” climate conditions from the Helmand, a more than 1,000-kilometer waterway that runs from the Afghan Hindu Kush mountains through the country and into Iran.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that tension has prevailed over the Iran-Afghanistan borders that span over 900 kilometers upon pressures put by Tehran on the government of “Taliban” regarding the former’s share of water from the Helmand River that flows into Hamun Lake in Iranian Baluchestan province.
In mid-May, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi issued a warning to the Taliban: honor Afghanistan’s water-supply agreement or face the consequences.
A well-known Taliban figure offered a mocking gift of a 20-liter water container in response and told him to stop making terrifying ultimatums.
About a week later, a skirmish erupted on the border, leaving two Iranian guards and one Taliban member dead. The Taliban sent thousands of troops and hundreds of suicide bombers to the area, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, claiming the group is prepared for war with Iran over a water dispute.
The editorial of the Iranian reformist Ham-Mihan newspaper had strongly attacked the Taliban, warning of “serious security conflicts” between Iran and the Afghan movement.
Heshmatullah Falahatpisheh, a former member of parliament and chairman of the body's Foreign Policy Commission, said that more than 1.5 million Afghans with a military background entered Iranian territory after the Taliban took over.
He claimed that 10,000 Afghan migrants enter Iranian territory every day, and also mentioned the presence of one Afghan for every 8 Iranians. Falahatpisheh then warned of a demographic change in some cities.
Meanwhile, the Iranian website, Tebyan, revealed that “Iran has relinquished part of its territory to the Taliban.”
In the past days, a photo circulated on social media showed Iran building a wall on the borders between the two countries.
Tebyan said that farmers in the Sistan region in the northern Iranian province of Baluchestan lost 2,000 hectares due to the security wall being built by the Iranian authorities with the aim of countering drug smugglers from Afghanistan.
