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Pakistan’s defense minister warned Afghanistan on Wednesday that any new “terrorist or suicide attack” by militants on Pakistani soil would draw a stern response, hours after talks between them in Istanbul failed to secure a peace agreement.
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 were 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 by countries including Qatar on Oct. 19 in Doha, followed by four days of talks in Istanbul that ended inconclusively.
In a post on X, Pakistan’s Defense 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 longed accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of turning a blind eye to Pakistani Taliban and other militants operating from Afghanistan. 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 and 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 tweet 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 to employ 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 Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Both countries have shut all major crossings, leaving hundreds of trucks carrying goods and refugees stranded on both sides.
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.”
