Information Minister Ataullah Tarar early on Wednesday confirmed that peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan had collapsed, as he blamed the Afghan Taliban’s “deflection and ruses” for the failure to find any workable solution.
In a statement on X, Tarar recalled that Pakistan had repeatedly engaged with the Afghan Taliban since they returned to power in 2021, urging them to fulfill their commitments to prevent the use of Afghan soil for terrorism. “However, Pakistan’s fervent efforts proved futile due to Afghan Taliban regime’s unabated support to anti-Pakistan terrorists,” he said. “Since the Taliban regime bears no responsibility towards the people of Afghanistan and thrives on war economy, it desires to drag and mire Afghan people into a needless war,” he added.
Emphasizing that Pakistan had rendered immense sacrifices for the peace and prosperity of the people of Afghanistan, he said this was evident from the “countless rounds” of talks with the Taliban regime, who had remained indifferent to Pakistan’s losses. “Sadly, after sustaining such huge losses of men and material for four long years, Pakistan’s patience has run its course,” he said.
The minister said the peace talks in Doha and Istanbul were yet another attempt to give peace a chance, undertaken on the request of brotherly countries Qatar and Türkiye. These talks, he said, had a single-point agenda of soliciting action by the Afghan Taliban to prevent the use of their soil as a training ground and launchpad for militancy against Pakistan by terrorist organizations.
“Pakistan is thankful to Qatar and Turkiye for facilitating this dialogue and their sincerest efforts in convincing Afghan Taliban regime to desist from the use of terror proxies as leverage against Pakistan,” he said.
During the course of talks in Istanbul over the past four days, said Tarar, the Taliban’s delegation had “repeatedly agreed” to Pakistan’s logical and legitimate demand for credible and decisive action against terrorists. “Sufficient and irrefutable evidence was provided by Pakistan, which was acknowledged by Afghan Taliban and the hosts, however, regrettably, the Afghan side gave no assurances,” he said, adding the Afghans had repeatedly deviated from the core issue and resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses rather than accepting any responsibility. “The dialogue thus failed to bring about any workable solution,” he said.
Reiterating thanks to the governments of Qatar and Türkiye and other friendly states for their efforts at securing a peaceful solution, he stressed that the security of its people is of paramount importance to Pakistan. “We will continue to take all possible measures necessary to protect our people from the menace of terrorism and assure them that the Government of Pakistan will continue to employ all the resources which are required in this regard to decimate the terrorists, their sanctuaries, their abetters and supporters,” he added.
While Tarar did not blame any third party for the collapse of talks, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told Geo News he believed India was using Afghanistan in a proxy war against Pakistan. He also warned that any attempt by the Taliban regime to target Islamabad—as reported by Afghan media outlets—it would trigger a decisive response. “If Afghanistan even looks at Islamabad, we will gouge their eyes out,” he said.