Leniency with Taliban does not work, Tehran should prove President Raisi warning serious: Iranian daily

Jomhouri-e Eslami Daily said in an editorial on Saturday that the Iranian government should make the Taliban understand that a recent warning by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was serious.

The Taliban have been refusing to allow Iran’s share of water from Helmand to stream into the country. That has caused a drought in Sistan and Baluchestan Province in Iran’s southeast.

Iranian officials have recently changed their tone regarding the matter, with President Raisi “warning” the group and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian saying that Iran would resort to pressure if necessary.

“The only way for this rogue group to stop its violations is for the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to show that the president’s warning is completely serious and that there would be no lenience in this regard,” Jomhouri-e Eslami wrote.

“The silver lining in this affair is that now, even the Taliban apologists have realized that lenience doesn’t work with this group and that they should correct their miscalculation in dealing with it,” it added.

Iran’s Space Agency said recently that images obtained from Iranian satellites showed that the Afghan government was preventing water from reaching the Iranian side of the border by building numerous dams and diverting the flow of the water.