Two Iranian border guards have reportedly been martyred in clashes with Taliban forces at the joint border with Afghanistan, IRNA reports.
In clashes that took place on Saturday morning at the Sasuli border post, located in Iran's Zabol county, the Iranian border guards fired back at the Taliban forces.
Two civilians are said to have been injured in the incident.
That comes as the commander of the Sasuli border post had been martyred by Taliban forces last week.
A spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry, Abdul Nafi Takor, said one Taliban guard was killed in the clashes with Iranian forces in the Afghan province of Nimroz earlier in Saturday.
Enayatullah Khowarazmi, the Taliban’s defense ministry spokesman, called for “dialogue and negotiation” to defuse the tensions with Iran.
Tensions have spiked between Iran and Afghanistan in recent months over the Taliban government’s failure to honor a 1973 water-sharing treaty as Iranian authorities insist that the ruling group in Kabul is restricting the flow of water from the Helmand River to Iran's arid eastern regions.
