Pakistan’s government did not know about or approve Iran’s Jan 16 aerial attack

The iVerify Pakistan team has checked this content and has established that it is false since no talks were held between Pakistan and Iran on the January 16, 2024, attack before the incident.
 
To arrive at this verdict, the iVerify Pakistan team analysed the original video of the Iranian foreign minister’s interview from January 17, 2024, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, as well as press releases from the foreign ministries of the two countries after the attack.

HOW IT STARTED

 
The earliest mention of the video that the iVerify Pakistan team found was in a post on social media platform X by a PTI supporter on January 17, 2024.

The caption for the post said: “The statement of the Iranian foreign minister must be shared so that the ongoing propaganda fails. An attack on Pakistan was made after talks with the  government.”

A 70-second clip in the post showed Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian talking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
   
The post gained over 241,000 views.

The same post with the same caption was shared by another PTI user, gaining over 45,000 views.
 
Apart from social media platform X, the same clip with the caption was shared here, here, and here on Facebook.
 

METHODOLOGY

The iVerify Pakistan team sought to determine the veracity of the claim since it came on the heels of a major diplomatic crisis between Iran and Pakistan after the former launched an attack on the latter’s territory on Jan 16.
 
Investigating the clip, the iVerify Pakistan team conducted a keyword search on “Iranian foreign minister” and “Pakistan attack” and found a video uploaded on the Youtube channel of international news wire agency Reuters with the title “LIVE: Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian attends Davos event” on Jan 17.

The video was an interview of Iran’s top diplomat by veteran journalist Fareed Zakaria on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Zakaria began the interview by questioning the Iranian foreign minister on the subject of the attack on Pakistan’s territory.

The following is a transcript of the relevant part of the interview from the 10:30 minute mark:

“None of the nationals of the friendly and brotherly country of Pakistan were targeted by the missiles and the drones of Iran. There is this group called Jaish Al Adl which is an Iranian terrorist group, and somehow they have taken shelter in some parts of the Sistan and Balochistan provinces of Pakistan.
 
Several times, we have talked to a lot of officials in Pakistan and the security forces there. They (the terrorists) carried out some operations in Iran, especially in the Rask police station, where they killed our security personnel. We responded accordingly.
 
We only targeted Iranian terrorists on the soil of Pakistan. Before this, I talked to my colleague, the honourable foreign minister of Pakistan, and I assured him that we do respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan.”

Analysing the transcript, the team saw that the foreign minister’s quote regarding his talk with Pakistan’s interim Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani was instead construed by the claim under investigation as contact with the Pakistan government.

Furthermore, the claim linked its above interpretation with the “before this” part of the Iranian foreign minister’s comment.

Carrying out a search for recent official communication between the two foreign ministers, both before and after the attack, yielded no results for the first search.

However, the team found press releases issued from the two countries in the wake of the attack about a telephonic conversation between their top diplomats.
 
The press release from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was issued on Jan 17, titled: “Foreign minister receives telephone call of the foreign minister of Iran”

The relevant portion of the press release is reproduced below.

“The foreign minister firmly underscored that the attack conducted by Iran inside Pakistani territory on January 16, 2024, was not only a serious breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty but was also an egregious violation of international law and the spirit of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran.”

The press release referred to the Jan 16 attack in the past tense and clearly placed the telephonic conversation as occurring in its aftermath.
 
Similarly, a press release from Iran’s foreign ministry was also issued on Jan 17.

The relevant portion of the statement is reproduced below.
 
“Amirabdollahian added that the anti-terror operation of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran on Tuesday was against this Iranian terrorist group and no Pakistani nationals were attacked in the operation.”

The statement, just as Pakistan’s, also referred to the attack in the past tense and placed the communication between the foreign ministers after the incident.
   

IRANIAN STRIKE ON PAKISTAN TERRITORY

 
According to a Dawn.com report, Iran on Tuesday had laun­ched attacks in Pakistan targeting what it described as bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl in the border town of Panjgur in Balochistan.

The incident prompted strong condemnation from Islamabad, a downgrading of diplomatic ties as well as subsequent counter-strikes by Pakistan in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province.

The Iranian strikes were part of a series of attacks carried out by Iran in recent days in Syria and Iraq as a response to recent terrorist attacks on its territory.
 

CONCLUSION

 
The iVerify team has determined that the claim attached to the posts circulating on social media is false as a perusal of the Iranian foreign minister’s interview along with press releases from Pakistan and Iran’s foreign ministries does not point to any contact or talks before the Jan 16 attack.

The available evidence points to the telephonic conversation between the Iranian and Pakistan top diplomats taking place in the aftermath of the attack.

Thus, the iVerify Pakistan team concluded that the “before this” part of the Iranian diplomat’s interview clearly referred to his engagement and activities at the meeting of the World Economic Forum instead of before the attack.

The Iranian foreign minister meant that his conversation with FM Jilani took place before the interview, not before the Jan 16 attack — as claimed in the circulated social media posts.