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'Talks over': Khawaja Asif's big warning to Afghanistan as negotiations hit the wall
Khawaja Asif warned that the ongoing ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan will hold only until there is no breach from the Afghan side.
Just as hopes were rising for negotiations between Pakistan and Afghanistan following their border clashes, talks have once again reached an impasse.
Amid peace talks in Turkey's Istanbul, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced that the negotiations were at a deadlock. Kabul hasn't confirmed this claim yet.
Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif also reportedly said that the talks were "over", further warning that the ongoing ceasefire will hold only until there are no violations from the Afghan side.
Asif reportedly told Pakistan's independent Geo news channel that “as we speak, the talks are over.”
Pakistan's Information Minister's announcement of a deadlock in talks came after an Afghan official alleged that four Afghan civilians were killed in clashes between Pakistani and Afghan forces.
Deadlock week after agreement
The fresh deadlock in negotiations came a week after Turkey said that Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to maintain the ceasefire. “All parties have agreed on continuation of ceasefire,” the Istanbul statement read.
“All parties have agreed to put in place a monitoring and verification mechanism that will ensure maintenance of peace and imposing penalty on the violating party,” it further added.
Further talks on implementation of the agreement were scheduled for November 6, but Pakistan is now saying that the Taliban failed to meet pledges it made with the international community about curbing terrorism under a 2021 Doha peace accord.
Attaullah Tarar assured that Pakistan valued peace and stability but would take "necessary" measures to protect its own people. According to news agency AP, Tarar has said that Pakistan “will not support any steps by the Taliban government that are not in the interest of the Afghan people or neighboring countries.”
What happened at Pak-Afghan border?
Tensions at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border flared up in October, around the time Taliban minister Amir Khan Muttaqi was visiting India. It all started with explosions in Kabul that the Taliban blamed Pakistan for.
In “retaliation”, the Taliban later targeted Pakistani military posts, and claimed that it killed 58 of Pak soldiers, even as Islamabad confirmed the deaths of 23 personnel.
A ceasefire was arrived at later, that both sides said the other had asked for. Peace, however, was short-lived as airstrikes were thereafter reported on Afghan territory, killing at least 10 people.
The most recent ceasefire violation was on Thursday night as Pakistan and Afghanistan reportedly briefly exchanged fire along the Chaman border in southwest Pakistan.
