The much-anticipated peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan have ended in a stalemate.
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has threatened on X that Pakistan will “obliterate” the Afghan Taliban.
With the peace efforts by Qatar and Turkiye having failed, it may give US President Donald Trump the opportunity to notch up another peace deal
With three days of peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan ending in a stalemate, Islamabad has ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Taliban, leading to fears of a fresh outbreak of hostilities.
The culprit again is the country’s tough-talking, defence minister Khawaja Asif, who threatened on X : "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." Kabul has, at the time of writing, not reacted to Asif’s threat.
The Pakistan army, which faced much flak from the public after the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan, is riding a wave of popularity following Operation Sindoor. The army’s role as the defender of Pakistan is being reinforced. This perhaps explains the defence minister’s threat to the Taliban. It also helps him to gain some brownie points from the military leadership, who continue to pull the political strings in Pakistan. However, a war with the Taliban is not a cake walk. The Afghans are tough fighters, and Afghanistan is often referred to as the graveyard of foreign armies. The British know it, so do the Russians and the Americans. Pakistan cannot be any different.
Reportedly, talks broke down on Tuesday over the issue of the Taliban’s support for the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP), which believes in the same ideology as the Afghan Taliban, though it is not an extension of it. While Pakistan and Afghanistan have always had differences over the Durand Line, the international border that divides the two countries, the sticking point however, is the Taliban’s refusal to throw out the TTP from its territory. The TTP has several camps in Afghanistan and operates with impunity from Afghan territory. Since the Taliban returned to Kabul in August of 2021, the TTP has been emboldened and stepped up its terror strikes inside Pakistan. A rough calculation puts the number at 1000. Islamabad believes that the TTP attacks would come down drastically if their camps in Afghanistan were removed.
Trump as Peace Maker?
With the peace efforts by Qatar and Turkiye having failed, it may give US President Donald Trump the opportunity to notch up another peace deal. Trump has hinted several times that he could get Pakistan and Afghanistan to make peace. He said it in his address in Sharm El-Sheikh and, again, while speaking to reporters during his visit to Kuala Lumpur, said he would “solve the Afghanistan-Pakistan crisis very quickly.”
His ties with Pakistan’s field marshal, Asif Munir, and PM Shehbaz Sharif are excellent at the moment. The Taliban, too, could benefit from making friends with the US. It could bargain for international recognition and get back some of the $7 billion that is frozen in US banks. However, with Trump now making fresh claims to the Bagram Air Base near Kabul, the situation has become more complex. The Taliban has rejected Trump’s claims.
