Afghan refugees gather beside trucks loaded with their belongings as they wait their turn to leave for their homeland through a border crossing point which partially opens following Oct.19 ceasefire, on the outskirts of Chaman, a border town on the Pakistan-Afghan border. AFP
Earlier this month, Pakistan's military launched attacks on what it said were hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan, killing dozens of people whom it described as insurgents. Afghanistan said that the people killed were civilians and struck Pakistani military posts in response, claiming 58 Pakistani soldiers were killed.
Pakistan's military said it lost 23 soldiers in the border fighting.
The two sides agreed to a ceasefire brokered in Doha on Oct. 19 by countries including Qatar, followed by four days of talks in Istanbul that ended inconclusively.
In a post on X, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif told Afghanistan’s Taliban government that “any terrorist attack or suicide bombing inside Pakistan shall give you the bitter taste of such misadventures.”
There was no immediate comment from Kabul on the collapse of peace talks or on Asif’s remarks, but Afghanistan’s state broadcaster RTA reported that the negotiations stalled because of what it called “irrational demands” from Pakistan.
According to RTA, Islamabad sought assurances that no attacks would be launched from Afghan territory, while the Taliban delegation said the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, was an internal issue for Islamabad.
Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan's Taliban government of turning a blind eye to Pakistani Taliban and other militants operating from its territory. Kabul denies the charge.
Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks, most claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, which is a separate group from the Afghan Taliban but has been emboldened since the latter returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Many Pakistani Taliban leaders and fighters have been living in Afghanistan since then.
Asif, in a strongly worded post on X, also accused Kabul of “blindly pushing Afghanistan into yet another conflict” to preserve what he described as its “usurped rule and war economy.”
“Let me assure them that Pakistan does not require employing even a fraction of its full arsenal to completely obliterate the Taliban regime and push them back to the caves for hiding,” he said.
Despite the failure of the talks, a ceasefire remained in place, and no new clashes were reported along the border. Both countries have shut all major crossings, leaving hundreds of trucks carrying goods and refugees stranded on each side.
Asif told reporters in Islamabad that reopening the border for bilateral and transit trade with Afghanistan was conditional on Kabul’s assurance that Afghan territory would not be used for militant attacks against Pakistan.
He said Pakistan had evidence showing that Afghan soil was used to stage violence in Pakistan, and that information was shared with the Afghan delegation during the Istanbul talks.
Asif said that “terrorists who come from across the border to attack Pakistan will be pursued there, even if they have come from Afghanistan," and that Pakistan could go deep inside Afghanistan to hit such militants.
At the Chaman border crossing in southwestern Balochistan province in Pakistan, hundreds of Afghan refugee families and traders voiced frustration and anxiety over the failed talks.
“We came to know that the talks failed,” said Ajab Khan, an Afghan refugee waiting in a long queue of trucks loaded with household goods. “Now we are going back to Afghanistan, but it’s a scary situation. We don’t know how we will survive there.”
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