Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has said that his country’s fragile ceasefire agreement with Afghanistan depends on whether the latter reins in armed groups attacking across their shared border.
“Everything hinges on this one clause,” said Asif in an interview with news agency Reuters on Monday, after the two countries reached a ceasefire agreement brokered by Qatar and Turkiye the previous day.
The truce followed a week of deadly border clashes that saw relations plummet to their lowest point since Afghanistan’s Taliban returned to power after the exit of US and NATO troops from the country in 2021.
The fighting was triggered after Islamabad demanded that Kabul control fighters from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella of several armed groups commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban, saying they operated from havens in Afghanistan.
“Anything coming from Afghanistan will be [a] violation of this agreement,” said Asif, who led the talks with his Afghan counterpart Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob. He said that the written agreement stipulated there would not be any incursions.
The minister said that TTP operated “in connivance” with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, an allegation that the latter has denied. Afghanistan accuses the Pakistani military of spreading misinformation and sheltering ISIL (ISIS)-linked fighters to undermine its stability and sovereignty.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, said that under the terms of the agreement, “neither country will undertake any hostile actions against the other, nor will they support groups carrying out attacks against the Government of Pakistan”.
Mujahid said the countries had agreed on refraining “from targeting each other’s security forces, civilians, or critical infrastructure”.
The Pakistan Taliban, which has been waging a war for years against Islamabad in a bid to overthrow the government, has accelerated attacks in recent months to target Pakistan’s military.
Pakistan security officials said the military carried out air strikes on the Afghan capital Kabul, including one on October 9 in an attempt to kill Pakistan Taliban leader Noor Wali Mehsud, though he later appeared in a video showing he was alive.
“We were being attacked. Our territory was being attacked. So we just did tit for tat. We were paying them in the same coin,” Asif said.
“They are in Kabul. They are everywhere. Wherever they are, we will attack them. Kabul is not, you know, a no-go area.”
The next round of talks is scheduled to be held in Istanbul on October 25 to evolve a mechanism on how to enforce the agreement, Asif said.
