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Pakistan’s defense minister warned Wednesday that his country would “obliterate” Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, sharply escalating tensions after peace talks between the two neighbors collapsed.
Truce negotiations concluded in Istanbul without a “workable solution,” Pakistan’s information minister said early Wednesday, in a blow for peace in the region after this month’s deadly clashes.
Pakistan reacted with fury to the failure of the talks, which sources said ended with a disagreement over terrorist groups allegedly using Afghanistan as a base to attack its security forces along their border.
“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,” Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said in a post on X.
The Taliban and Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the remarks.
Preventing fresh clashes
Dozens were killed this month along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the worst such violence since the Taliban took power in Kabul in 2021.
Both nations agreed to a cease-fire brokered in Doha on Oct. 19, but could not find common ground in a second round of talks mediated by Türkiye and Qatar in Istanbul, Afghan and Pakistani sources briefed on the issue told Reuters Tuesday.
Each blamed the other for the failure.
“The Afghan side kept deviating from the core issue … on which the dialogue process was initiated,” Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Wednesday, accusing it of engaging in deflection, ruses and playing a “blame game.”
“The dialogue thus failed to bring about any workable solution,” he added in a statement.
Afghanistan’s Foreign and Defense Ministries did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for comment on the statement.
A Pakistani security source said the Taliban had been unwilling to commit to rein in the Pakistani Taliban, a separate terrorist group hostile to Pakistan that Islamabad says operates with impunity inside Afghanistan.
An Afghan source familiar with the talks said they ended after “tense exchanges” on the issue, adding that the Afghan side said it has no control over the Pakistani Taliban, which has launched attacks against Pakistani troops in recent weeks.
The sources sought anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Firefights continue
The October clashes began after Pakistani airstrikes this month on Kabul, the Afghan capital, among other locations, targeting the head of the Pakistani Taliban.
The Taliban responded with attacks on Pakistani military posts along the length of the 2,600-kilometer (1,600 miles) border, which remains closed.
On Saturday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister said he believed Afghanistan wanted peace but that failure to reach a deal in Istanbul would mean “open war.”
Despite a cease-fire between Pakistan and the Taliban, weekend clashes killed five Pakistani soldiers and 25 Pakistani Taliban terrorists near the border with Afghanistan, the military said Sunday.
