RAWALPINDI: Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry refuted allegations by the Afghan Taliban on Tuesday that Pakistan had conducted overnight strikes in Afghanistan, state media reported.
The statement by the head of the military’s media wing came hours after the Afghan Taliban spokesperson accused Pakistan of attacks in Khost, Kunar and Paktika provinces.
According to state broadcaster Pakistan TV, the military spokesperson refuted the claims of conducting strikes inside Afghanistan. “Pakistan Army has not attacked civilians inside Afghanistan,” it quoted him as saying.
“Whenever Pakistan attacks someone, it announces it,” he said, according to local media.
“In our view, there are no good and bad Taliban,” he said, adding that there was “no distinction” between terrorists.
“The Taliban government should make decisions as a state, not as non-state actors,” said Gen Chaudhry. He also wondered how long the current set-up in Afghanistan would remain an interim one.
Pakistan’s bilateral relations with Afghanistan have come under strain in recent times as the banned terrorist Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group remains the main point of contention between the two countries.
Pakistan has demanded that the rulers in Kabul take action to stop cross-border terrorism, but the Afghan Taliban deny Islamabad’s allegations of terrorists being allowed to use Afghan soil to carry out attacks in Pakistan.
During a process of dialogue, which followed border clashes between the two countries in October, the two sides had met in an effort to work on mechanisms for lasting peace and stability between the two countries.
On October 25, the second round of talks between the two sides began in Istanbul. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar then announced that the talks “failed to bring about any workable solution”.
However, mediators Turkiye and Qatar had intervened and managed to salvage the dialogue process with an October 31 joint statement released by Ankara stating that “further modalities of the implementation will be discussed and decided” during a principal-level meeting in Istanbul in November.
On November 7, however, after the third round of talks, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that talks addressing cross-border terrorism were “over” and “entered an indefinite phase” as negotiators failed to bridge big differences between the two sides.
Following the failure of the talks, the Afghan Taliban suspended trade ties with Islamabad. Pakistan had already closed its border for trade soon after the October clashes.
Subsequently, Turkiye announced that its top officials would visit Pakistan to discuss tensions between Islamabad and Kabul. Pakistan welcomed Turkiye’s and Doha’s “sincere efforts” on Nov 14, but the delegation’s arrival is still awaited, amid reports of complexities in the process.
Last week, the Foreign Office said that the resumption of trade with Afghanistan depended on the Taliban regime ending cross-border terrorism, and also linked the fate of key regional energy projects to Kabul halting its support for terrorist groups.
