Iranian daily slams invitation of Taliban ‘water war theorist’ to Tehran as ‘own goal’

In an article published on Thursday, Jomhouri-e Eslami noted Farooq has a history of distorting the 1973 Delta Treaty, that served as the basis for both country’s water rights from the Hirmand river, and manipulating contemporary history to deprive Iran of its rights.

Farooq has been selected as the keynote speaker for the Water for Peace conference by the UNESCO Chair in Water Recycling at the University of Tehran and is expected to be commemorated in the event.

The newspaper highlighted Azam’s long-standing efforts to deceive the Afghan public opinion regarding water rights, using the treaty as a tool to link bilateral cooperation to water issues.

He has made various controversial claims, including that Iran agreed to allow Afghanistan free use of Chabahar port, provided $2 billion in aid, built railways and roads for Afghanistan, and was willing to buy additional water, it added.

Jomhouri-e Eslami argued that honoring Azam in Tehran insults the Iranian nation and endorses Afghanistan’s human rights violations regarding water and the environment.

“Given the absence of a strategy in the country’s diplomatic framework for the water dispute between Iran and Afghanistan, and the likelihood that Farooq Azam may justify Afghanistan’s dam constructions in his speech at the University of Tehran, his selection as the keynote speaker for the conference is considered a diplomatic own goal in the fields of water diplomacy and media,” the newspaper concluded.