TEHRAN - Naveed Qamar, head of Iran-Pakistan parliamentary friendship group, has said that Pakistan will not support the United States’ illegal sanctions on Iran.

“Islamabad has never supported and will never support Washington’s illegal sanctions against Iran, because these sanctions are harmful to the whole region,” he told IRNA in an interview published on Sunday.

He also urged the U.S. to remove sanctions on Iran.

Elsewhere, he said that Pakistan will continue efforts to ease tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan visited Iran in October to “facilitate” possible dialogue between Iran and Saudi Arabia which have been at loggerheads over a number of issues, including the Saudi war on Yemen and Riyadh’s support for the United States’ anti-Iran moves.

He met with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani. A few days later, Khan also visited Saudi Arabia.

The Pakistani prime minister visited Iran as the tension in the region was getting more complicated. On October 11, an Iranian oil tanker was struck by two missiles in the Red Sea, 60 miles away from Saudi coastlines.

Khan has said that he is making an effort to reduce tension between Tehran and Riyadh. 

Prior to his visit to Tehran in October, he held talks with Saudi Arabia’s leaders in Riyadh as well as Rouhani at the United Nations headquarters in New York in September.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric has said that Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, has welcomed Khan’s initiative to de-escalate tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Dujarric told reporters at the regular noon briefing in New York in October that the UN chief welcomes any such effort “as a matter of principle”.

NA/PA