At dawn on a cool October morning, officials in Islamabad and Kabul performed a rare ritual in the history of their troubled border: They agreed to continue talking.
After five days of tense exchanges in Istanbul, accompanied by diplomatic walkouts, nocturnal interventions by Turkish and Qatari mediators and negotiators about to board flights home, Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban decided to extend the ceasefire and committed to developing a mechanism to verify violations.
In most areas this would be routine diplomacy. In South Asia, where ceasefires are less agreements than moments of calm between artillery fire, this passes for progress. Pakistan’s defense minister cautiously called this a “ray of light.”
Taliban officials offered familiar assurances of mutual respect. Turkey and Qatar have congratulated themselves – rightly – on keeping two suspicious neighbors in the same room.
But even the most optimistic diplomats would privately admit to what can be ironically described as a framework for peace, but not yet peace itself. The frames in this relationship are delicate instruments; they rarely survive their first encounter with reality.
To understand why even this thin reed is important, one must understand why the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has rarely been smooth sailing. The Durand Line, 2,640 kilometers long, drawn in 1893 by a British administrator, was intended as a hard border.
The Afghans never fully accepted it. Pakistan insists this is established international law. Kabul sees an unfinished story. Mutual resentment dates back to the very birth of Pakistan: Afghanistan was the only country to oppose Pakistan’s admission to the UN in 1947.
For decades, the conflict in Pashtunistan has simmered. There were border closures, cross-border raids and propaganda campaigns, all fueled by the suspicion that geography had imposed an unreliable neighbor.
History has offered few remedies. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan became the scene of anti-Soviet jihad. More than three million Afghans have entered Pakistan; we trained the mujahideen commanders and later the Taliban as instruments of strategic depth.
The deal was simple: Pakistan offered refuge and financing; Afghan militants were hostile to Moscow, then to New Delhi. As is often the case with activist customers, loyalty proved temporary and the consequences lasting.
After 2001, Pakistan officially aligned itself with Washington, while preserving its chances by maintaining relations with the Taliban channels which it saw as future insurance. The bet, in its cynical way, was rational: foreign armies come and go, but Afghanistan remains eternally on Pakistan’s doorstep.
When the Taliban returned to Kabul in 2021, Pakistani officials hoped for gratitude, leverage, and perhaps clout. Instead, they discovered an Afghan leadership that acknowledged past support but refused current obedience.
The TTP re-emerged, cross-border attacks increased, and Kabul unexpectedly warmed up to India. Islamabad found that its old leverage had evaporated, leaving behind only expectations and embarrassments.
In this context, the Istanbul talks mark less a reconciliation than a break in recriminations. Pakistan arrived with firm demands: the Taliban must take “clear, verifiable and irreversible measures” against the TTP, declare it a terrorist organization and agree to an external mechanism to verify cross-border incidents.
The Afghan delegation resisted, instead proposing to arrest or expel any TTP members it found, while insisting that Islamabad’s real problem lay within its own territory.
Their response was brutal: these are Pakistanis fighting Pakistan within Pakistan. They are not ours. Thus, both sides repeated the circular logic that has long derailed the fight against terrorism in the region. The fact that the parties reached an agreement, however modest, owes much to external mediation. Turkey and Qatar simultaneously deployed a diplomatic force that few others possess in Kabul and Islamabad.
Both sides were firmly reminded that escalation was costly and isolation was even worse. Border clashes have killed fighters on both sides. Commercial crossings were briefly closed.
Neither government wants uncontrolled escalation; both fear losing control of events along a border where tribes, smugglers and militants sometimes act more quickly than states. However, the distrust remains strong enough to be reduced.
Pakistan believes that the Afghan Taliban offer the TTP refuge, ideological sympathy and sometimes logistical indulgence. Afghan leaders say Pakistan has not given up the temptation to interfere beyond the Durand Line, whether through intelligence networks, airstrikes or pressure on border communities.
Each camp considers the other as the author of its insecurity. Both are partly right. And each suspects the other of courting India, America or China at their expense, depending on the week. For Pakistan, the stakes are immediate. Since the return of the Taliban to Kabul, the TTP has increased attacks on Pakistani soil with renewed vigor.
Islamabad faces a stubborn insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, fragile economic conditions and political instability. Our army, already overwhelmed by internal security commitments and Eastern vigilance against India, no longer has much patience for another open front. Chinese pressure adds to the urgency: Beijing wants to secure CPEC routes and has little tolerance for militant adventurism near its investments.
For Afghanistan, the calculation is no less difficult. The Taliban government needs trade routes, fuel, food imports and diplomatic recognition. Pakistan remains Afghanistan’s main trade artery to the world. Alienating Islamabad while facing Western sanctions, internal economic collapse and restive commanders is not sustainable.
Kabul knows that too much belligerence risks provoking a neighbor with stronger conventional forces and a demonstrated willingness to strike across borders.
The truce is therefore less an embrace than a grudging acknowledgment that neither side can afford a breakup. But the experience encourages sobriety. We have been down this path before – negotiating with militants in Swat in 2008, South Waziristan in 2009 and again in 2014, each time discovering that truces with ideologues turn into traps.
Diplomacy with the Afghan Taliban has also oscillated between high expectations and harsh awakenings. In 2021, our officials were photographed sipping tea in Kabul days after the Taliban took power; two years later, they found themselves threatening airstrikes against their former protégés.
The challenge now is to transform a fragile ceasefire into something more durable, tied not to sentiment but to structure. If the new monitoring mechanism is to be meaningful, it must ultimately involve transparent reporting, independent verification and consequences for violations.
Economic incentives – access to transit, energy cooperation, trade facilitation – will be essential carrots. So will multilateral pressure: China, Iran, Russia and the Gulf states all have an interest in a stable border, and each holds some influence over Kabul. No one wants Afghanistan to drift once again into a sanctuary for transnational militants.
The burden also falls on the Afghan Taliban. To view sovereignty as anything more than a slogan, they must confront the paradox at the heart of their power: a government cannot accommodate armed groups attacking its neighbors and still expect recognition, legitimacy or investment. Many states – from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Indonesia – have discovered that ideological kinship dies where national survival begins. Kabul could still learn the same lesson, but at a price that remains uncertain.
In truth, the Istanbul agreement is less a victory than a reprieve. Its success will depend less on what is signed in Türkiye than on what is implemented along the stony hills of Kurram and Kandahar. If the militants cross the line again, or if Pakistan strikes unilaterally, the current paper will become another entry in a long archive of failed deals.
Yet if the calm persists, however worrying it may be, it will mark a rare moment when South Asian history pauses rather than repeats itself. For now, the guns have fallen silent, the diplomats have expired and the border has enjoyed a brief intermission.
In a region where geography rarely forgives strategic miscalculations, even fragile pauses have value. Peace is a distant ambition; Survival, for now, is success enough.
The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK. He tweets/posts @NaazirMahmood and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policies of PK Press Club.tv.
Originally published in The News
