TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s president warned Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Thursday to not violate water rights of the Iranian folks over their shared Helmand River, the state-run IRNA information company reported.

President Ebrahim Raisi stated his authorities is decided to defend Iran’s water rights.

“We will not allow the rights of our people to be violated,” he stated and warned the Taliban to take his phrases significantly, emphasizing the significance of Helmand River, which flows from Afghanistan into Iran .

Raisi spoke in a Pakistani border city on Thursday, throughout his first official go to to the neighboring nation in 10 years, to inaugurate the primary of six markets alongside the Iran-Pakistan border.

He additionally urged the Afghan Taliban to permit Iranian hydrologists to verify the water ranges of the river, which originates within the Afghan Hindu Kush mountain vary.

The Taliban seized energy in Afghanistan in August 2021 after the United Sates and NATO pulled in a foreign country following twenty years of conflict.

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Iranian officers have at all times burdened the significance of the implementation of the 1973 Helmand River treaty between Iran and Afghanistan, which envisions shared water assets.

Drought has been an issue in Iran for some 30 years, however has worsened over the previous decade, based on the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization. The Iran Meteorological Organization says that an estimated 97% of the nation now faces some degree of drought.

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