The Foreign Office (FO) on Friday issued a demarche to the Afghan Taliban over its failure to rein in terrorist organisations operating from its soil after a deadly attack on a military camp in North Waziristan earlier today.

Four security forces personnel were martyred when an attempt by terrorists to attack a security forces camp was foiled in the area of Boya in North Waziristan district.

In a statement, the FO said that Pakistan condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms and identified the attackers as members of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, a group under the TTP umbrella.

“To convey our strong demarche, the Afghan deputy head of mission was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the statement read.

“The ministry conveyed Pakistan’s grave concern over the continued support and facilitation provided by the Afghan Taliban regime to the FAK/TTP, enabling them to carry out terrorist attacks against [the] Pakistan Military and the civilian population along the Pak-Afghan border and in adjoining areas,” it added.

The FO emphasised that the permissive environment enjoyed by the Fitna-al-Khawarij in Afghanistan contradicts Kabul’s commitments to Pakistan and the international community.

Fitna al Khawarij is a term the state uses for terrorists belonging to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

“Pakistan has demanded a full investigation and decisive action against the perpetrators and facilitators of the terrorist attacks launched against Pakistan from Afghan soil,” the statement said.

Islamabad also asked Kabul to take “immediate, concrete and verifiable measures against all terror groups operating from its territory, including their leadership and deny the continued use of Afghan soil for terrorism against Pakistan”.

The FO warned the Afghan Taliban that Pakistan “reserves the right to defend its sovereignty and protect its citizens, and will take all necessary measures to respond to terrorism originating from Afghan soil”.

Pak-Afghan relations

Pakistan’s bilateral relations with Afghanistan have come under strain in recent times as the TTP 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 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.

The Foreign Office also 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.

On December 1, Saudi Arabia quietly facilitated a round of direct talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan aimed at easing tensions over cross-border terrorism, but the discussions wrapped up without any breakthrough.

A recent United Nations Security Council report rejected the Taliban’s claim that terrorist groups are not using Afghan territory for cross-border violence, calling the assertion “not credible” and warning that neighbouring states increasingly view Afghanistan as a source of regional insecurity.

The assessment, contained in the sixteenth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, was submitted to the UN Security Council, as international concern grows over Afghanistan’s security landscape more than four years after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

“The de facto authorities continue to deny that any terrorist groups have a footprint in or operate from its territory. That claim is not credible,” the report said.