Pakistan Open to Conditional Talks with Taliban

DID Press: Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry has said Islamabad is willing to hold talks with the Taliban, provided the group takes practical steps to curb terrorist threats originating from Afghan territory.

Sajjad Haider Khan, spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, told a weekly news briefing that further negotiations would be futile unless the Taliban acknowledged the presence and activities of terrorist groups in Afghanistan and developed a credible mechanism to prevent security threats originating from the country and targeting its neighbours.

Citing reports by the United Nations monitoring team and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Khan claimed that more than 20 terrorist groups are based in Afghanistan and operate freely. He said these groups threaten the security of Pakistan, China, Uzbekistan and Iran.

Referring to an increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Khan claimed that more than 1,300 Pakistani citizens had been killed in such attacks over the past year.

He said Islamabad had engaged with the Taliban through bilateral meetings and international forums in Moscow, Qatar, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and China from 2021 until October last year. However, he said these efforts had failed because of what he described as the Taliban’s lack of flexibility.

The Taliban have repeatedly rejected Pakistan’s allegations that foreign armed groups are present in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said insecurity in Pakistan was detrimental to Afghanistan.