Following leaked statement of a member of the national assembly who vows to divide the province of Sistan-Balochistan in the southeast of Iran, the most influential Baloch leader repeated his disagreement with any possible plan of division.
In a message posted on the Twitter account of Mawlana Abdol-Hamid, he stated that instead of dividing the province for development, discriminatory policies should be removed.
President of Darululoom Zahedan said: “The geography of Sistan-Balochistan is such that each part complements the other parts; its people also complement each other.”
“To remove deprivation from this province and ensuring it development, the empathy and solidarity of people is necessary; this can be achieved by implementation of justice among ethnic and religious communities and eliminating discrimination, not by dividing the province,” Mawlana Abdol-Hamid underlined.
The province of Sistan-Balochistan is the second largest province of Iran with the majority of the Baloch ethnic community. It is the most deprived and poorest province of Iran according to the official censuses.