Pakistan says Afghan Taliban’s inaction on terrorism will no longer be tolerated, calling it the main obstacle to normal ties
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on Saturday that the Afghan Taliban regime’s persistent failure to act against terrorism emanating from Afghan soil remains the principal obstacle to normal relations, warning that Islamabad will take all necessary measures to protect its citizens.
Pakistan issued a sharply worded statement on Saturday accusing the Afghan Taliban regime of persistently refusing to confront terrorism emanating from Afghan soil, and warning that Islamabad’s patience on the issue should not be mistaken for weakness. The statement, from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, described the Taliban’s inaction as the single greatest obstacle to normal relations between the two neighbours.
The immediate trigger was the latest social media post by the Afghan Taliban spokesperson, which the ministry said reflected a deeply misguided approach to the deteriorating relationship. According to Islamabad, the Taliban leadership continues to blame Pakistan’s policies for the tensions while ignoring what Pakistan considers the central issue: militant sanctuaries on Afghan territory from which attacks against Pakistan are planned and launched.
“Pakistan’s position is unequivocal: terrorism is a red line and the security of its citizens is non-negotiable,” the statement said. It warned that Pakistan would not tolerate terrorist sanctuaries across its borders that threaten its security, nor allow its people to remain targets of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan. The language was among the firmest used by a civilian ministry in the current phase of the dispute.
The statement went further, reserving Pakistan’s right to take all necessary measures, in accordance with international law, to eliminate threats to its national security wherever they originate. It added that the responsibility for addressing those threats rests squarely with the Afghan Taliban regime, and that Kabul must recognise that Pakistan’s security will not be held hostage to what it called the regime’s inaction, evasions or misplaced priorities.
The warning comes against a backdrop of fresh border violence. Reports on Saturday linked the latest escalation to Afghan firing at Angoor Adda, in which one local resident was killed and five members of a family were injured, an incident that followed days of retaliatory Pakistani strikes on Afghan Taliban posts after earlier cross-border attacks. The sequence illustrates how quickly diplomatic statements and battlefield incidents are now feeding each other.
Islamabad’s argument has been made in parallel at the United Nations, where Pakistan’s delegate told the General Assembly’s Third Committee that the country cannot sit idle in the face of an externally backed terrorist onslaught originating from Afghanistan. The delegate cited more than 4,700 Pakistanis killed by terrorism emanating from Afghanistan over the past three years, and linked the Taliban regime to the unimpeded regional operations of banned groups including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and the Baloch Liberation Army.
The Taliban regime, for its part, has rejected Pakistan’s characterisation of events, dismissing Islamabad’s claims about border incidents as fabricated and blaming Pakistani policies for the breakdown in relations. That exchange of accusations — each side presenting itself as the victim of the other’s actions — is itself part of the problem, since it leaves no agreed factual basis from which de-escalation could begin.
The dispute has wider regional significance. Pakistan and Afghanistan share a long and porous border, and instability there affects trade, the movement of people and the security calculations of neighbouring states, including China and Iran, both of which have their own concerns about militant groups operating from Afghan territory. A prolonged Pakistan-Afghanistan confrontation would therefore not stay confined to the border.
Domestically, the statement also fits a pattern of the federal government taking a harder public line on security questions, at a time when it is simultaneously defending the emergency and governor’s rule imposed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and facing criticism from the opposition over detentions there. The government’s message is that security decisions, whether internal or external, will be driven by the threat assessment rather than by political pressure.
What happens next will depend on whether Kabul responds with action against militant networks or with further rhetorical rejection. Pakistan’s statement deliberately leaves the door open to normal relations, but makes that outcome conditional on the Taliban regime confronting the sanctuaries issue. Without movement on that point, the statement suggests, the cycle of border incidents, retaliatory strikes and competing accusations is likely to continue.
