Afghanistan-Pakistan Peace Talks Collapse Amid Mutual Recriminations

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – The latest and most intensive round of peace talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan has collapsed in a flurry of mutual recriminations and renewed border violence, with Kabul blaming Islamabad's "irresponsible and uncooperative" approach for the failure and Pakistan insisting the onus lies with the Taliban government to fulfill its pledges to curb terrorism.

The breakdown of the negotiations, which had been taking place in Turkey under the mediation of Ankara and Doha, has shattered a fragile, month-old ceasefire and stoked fears that the two South Asian neighbors are now on a path toward a new and potentially more violent confrontation.

The failure of the talks, as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP) and The Associated Press (AP), marks a dispiriting end to a diplomatic process that had carried a sliver of hope for de-escalating a conflict that saw more than 70 people killed and hundreds wounded in deadly border clashes just last month.

Instead of finalizing a truce, the two sides have departed Turkey with their positions seemingly more entrenched than ever, each threatening to exercise "all options necessary" to safeguard their national security.

The final, definitive blow to the negotiations came on Saturday, when the Taliban government in Kabul publicly declared the talks a failure. In a statement posted on social media, government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid laid the blame squarely on the Pakistani delegation.

"During the discussions, the Pakistani side attempted to shift all responsibility for its security to the Afghan government, while showing no willingness to take responsibility for either Afghanistan's security or its own," Mujahid wrote. "The irresponsible and uncooperative attitude of the Pakistani delegation has not yielded any results," he concluded.

This sharp public rebuke came just a day after Pakistan's Information Minister, Attaullah Tarar, had already signaled that the talks were on the verge of collapse. As reported by the AP, Tarar stated on Friday that the negotiations were at a "deadlock" and hinted that the Pakistani delegation was preparing to leave.

In a statement thanking the mediators, he maintained that the Afghan Taliban had "failed to meet pledges it made with the international community about curbing terrorism." He warned that Pakistan would take "all necessary measures" to protect its people and sovereignty. Pakistan's Defense Minister, Khawaja Asif, was even more blunt, telling Pakistan's Geo news channel that "as we speak, the talks are over.”

The core of the dispute revolves around a long-standing and deeply contentious issue: Islamabad's accusation that Afghanistan harbors militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which stage cross-border attacks into Pakistan.

The Taliban government has consistently and vehemently denied these allegations. As reported by AFP, Islamabad's primary demand in the talks was for guarantees from Kabul that it will stop supporting these armed organizations.

The Afghan side, meanwhile, has demanded that its territorial sovereignty be respected and has accused Islamabad of supporting armed groups that operate against it.

The negotiations in Turkey were the culmination of an intense diplomatic effort to pull the two nations back from the brink of a wider conflict. The process began after a series of deadly border clashes erupted last month, the worst violence between the neighbors in recent years, which saw dozens of soldiers, civilians, and suspected militants killed on both sides.

The fighting began after explosions in Kabul on October 9, for which the Taliban government blamed Pakistan and vowed to avenge. The violence only subsided after Qatar successfully brokered a ceasefire on October 19, a truce that was intended to pave the way for the more substantive talks in Istanbul.

Those talks, which began last week, were fraught with tension from the start. Even as the delegations were meeting in Istanbul, Pakistan's army announced that it had killed 25 militants while "repelling two major infiltration attempts" along the border, an operation in which five Pakistani soldiers also died.

The situation deteriorated further on Thursday night, when a fresh outbreak of fighting occurred along the border in the Spin Boldak district on the Afghan side. Both sides immediately blamed the other for initiating the shooting. An Afghan district hospital official told AFP that five people were killed in the fighting, including four women and one man.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid stated that Afghanistan did not retaliate "out of respect for the negotiating team and to prevent the loss of civilian lives."

Throughout the week-long talks, the Pakistani delegation maintained a firm and uncompromising position. According to Pakistani security officials cited by the AP, Islamabad had presented its "final position" to the Afghan representatives, emphasizing that the "patronage of terrorists is unacceptable."

They demanded "concrete and verifiable" action against the TTP and shared what they described as "solid evidence" of cross-border attacks originating from Afghan soil. The officials claimed that even the host countries had acknowledged that Pakistan's stance was "fair and justified."

The Afghan delegation, led by the director of general intelligence, Abdul Haq Wasiq, was reportedly in constant consultation with authorities in Kabul, and Pakistani officials told the AP that they were "not getting an encouraging response." This communication breakdown, coupled with the renewed violence on the border, appears to have created an insurmountable impasse.

The collapse of the talks now leaves the region in a perilous and uncertain state. Both sides have threatened a resumption of hostilities. Pakistan's Defense Minister, Khawaja Asif, stated that the ceasefire will remain intact only "until there is no breach of it from the Afghan side," a condition that has already been tested by the recent clashes.

The Taliban, for their part, have signaled that their patience has its limits. The failure to reach a diplomatic solution returns the focus to the volatile and heavily militarized 2,600-kilometer shared frontier, a region that has been a source of instability and violence for decades.

As the delegations return home empty-handed, the hopes for a negotiated peace have faded, replaced by the grim and all-too-familiar specter of a new and potentially bloodier chapter in the long and troubled history of Afghanistan-Pakistan relations.