TEHRAN, June 17 (Xinhua) -- A senior Iranian diplomat said the caretaker Afghan government has agreed to allow Iran's experts to visit Kajaki Dam on the Helmand River in Afghanistan and assess its water level.

"Agreements have been reached (with Taliban officials) that our experts could go and visit the region and, hopefully, prepare the ground for the release of the water," Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, Iran's special envoy to Afghanistan, said in a live TV interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network on Friday night.

Commenting on Iran's water rights from the Helmand River in Afghanistan that flows to the southeastern Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchestan, Kazemi-Qomi stressed that the Taliban should be committed to a 1973 treaty between the two countries, under which Iran is entitled to receive 820 million cubic meters of water from the river per year.

During the past weeks, high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, have called on the Taliban to give Iran water rights from the Helmand River.

The Iranian Space Agency spokesman said last month that satellite photos showed the Taliban has altered the river's route in order to prevent it from reaching Iran.

In response, the Taliban government said in a statement last month that Iran's frequent requests for water and "inappropriate" comments on media are "harmful," adding it is committed to the 1973 treaty.

Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting foreign minister of the Afghan interim government, said in early May that the Taliban recognizes Iran's water shares and does not seek to cause any problem for its neighbor.

The Helmand River originates in the Hindu Kush Mountains near Afghanistan's capital Kabul and runs more than 1,100 km south before flowing into Hamoun wetlands in Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan Province, which Iran says is hit by drought. Enditem

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