Pakistan seeks to de-escalate crisis with Iran after deadly airstrikes that spiked tensions

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s political and military leaders on Friday moved to de-escalate tensions with Iran after this week’s deadly airstrikes by Tehran and Islamabad that killed at least 11 people and marked a significant escalation in fraught relations between the neighbors.

The decision was apparently reached at a meeting of Pakistan’s National Security Committee, chaired by caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul-Haq-Kakar on his return home after cutting short his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Pakistan’s powerful army chief Gen. Asim Munir attended the meeting.

A statement after the meeting said the leadership discussed the situation following the Iranian airstrikes and praised the “professional, calibrated and proportionate response” by Pakistan’s military.

The committee stressed that existing communication channels between Pakistan and Iran “should be used to address each other’s security concerns in the larger interest of regional peace and stability,” according to the statement.

Pakistan on Thursday launched airstrikes against alleged militant hideouts inside Iran, in the Sistan and Baluchestan province, killing at least nine people. The strikes followed Iran’s attack Tuesday on Pakistani soil that killed two children in the southwestern Baluchistan province.

The unprecedented cross-border strikes threatened to imperil ties between Tehran and Islamabad — the two have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks — and also raised the threat of violence spreading across the Middle East, already unsettled by Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

In Iran, the state-run IRNA news agency reported on Pakistan’s efforts to reduce the tensions and said Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein