Don’t Grab Our Land, If You Don’t Release Our Water Share, Says Iranian Sunni Cleric

Mawlawi Mohammad Hossein Gergich, an Iranian Sunni cleric, asked the Taliban to return "two thousand acres lands of the people of Sistan" on the Afghan border.

Gergich said, “Those lands are ours. They belong to the Iranian nation and the Baloch people. If you don't give us water, [at least] don't take our lands."

The Iranian Sunni cleric said that years ago, Iranian authorities had built a border wall with Afghanistan, and "a major part of our territories had been left out on the other side of the wall".

In recent days, following an Iranian expert’s statement on Afghanistan, the issue of the border wall between Afghanistan and Iran has become controversial.

Entekhab news website recently quoted an expert on Afghan affairs and reported that there was a mistake while drawing the border wall in Zabul and part of Iran's land was placed on the other side of the wall. The expert claimed that now the Taliban insists that the official border is the wall built by Iran and "they [ Taliban] have taken over the lands”.

However, Gergich warned the Taliban to return the lands of "Sistan and the Baluchistan people".

During his Friday prayer sermons, he said that when the Iranian authorities wanted to build this wall, he had voiced his concerns that "this [building wall] is stupidity and useless”.

He accused the Iranian officials of misusing the funds for this wall and said, "We lost two thousand hectares of quality land in Sistan due to the stupidity of a few people."

Gergich said that after the construction of this wall, the farmers of Sistan got a "green card" to cross the other side of the wall, but now this card has been invalidated and they are not allowed to work on their lands on the Afghan side of the border.

Following the reactions about the Afghanistan-Iran border wall, on Monday, Nasser Kanaani, the spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said in a press conference in response to journalists' questions that he did not have updated information on this issue and also did not confirm media speculations about the wall.

In response to a question about whether Iran will take action to take back these lands, he said, "No land was given, so there is nothing for us to take back."

Kanaani emphasised that "the Islamic Republic of Iran has exercised its full sovereignty over the defined borders”.

The Taliban has not reacted to the wall and land issue.