Iranian president lands in Pakistan for three-day visit to mend ties

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Islamabad on Monday on a three-day official visit, the Pakistan's foreign office said, amid tight security in the Pakistani capital.

The visit, which foreign office said would run until Wednesday, comes as the two Muslim neighbors seek to mend ties after tit-for-tat military strikes targeting what they consider terrorist groups in the other's territory earlier this year.

"The Iranian president is accompanied by his spouse and a high-level delegation," Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the group also included the foreign minister, other cabinet members and senior officials.

Raisi will meet Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other officials and visit the eastern city of Lahore and the southern port city of Karachi, it said.

Major highways in Islamabad were blocked as part of the security measures for Raisi's arrival, and the government declared a public holiday in Karachi.

Tension is also high in the Middle East after Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel a week ago, and central Iran, in turn, suffered an apparent Israeli counterattack on Friday.

Pakistan and Iran have agreed to several commercial pacts, including a stalled gas supply deal signed in 2010 to build a pipeline from Iran's South Fars gas field to Pakistan's southern provinces of Balochistan and Sindh.

While Pakistan is in dire need of gas, Islamabad has yet to begin constructing its part of the pipeline, citing fears over U.S. sanctions – a concern Tehran has rejected.

Pakistan said it would seek waivers from the U.S., but Washington has said it does not support the project and warned of the risk of sanctions in doing business with Tehran.

Faced with the possibility of contract breach penalties running into the billions of dollars, Islamabad recently gave the go-ahead for constructing an 80-kilometer stretch of the pipeline.

(With input from Reuters)