Pakistan’s defence minister threatened on Wednesday to “obliterate” the ruling Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, a dramatic escalation of rhetoric after the collapse of talks towards a lasting peace between the South Asian nations.
Truce negotiations concluded in Istanbul without a “workable solution”, Pakistan’s information minister said early on Wednesday, in a blow for peace in the region after this month’s deadly clashes.
Pakistan reacted with fury to the failure of the talks, which sources said ended with a disagreement over militant groups allegedly using Afghanistan as a base to attack its security forces along their border.
“We will conduct strikes, we definitely will,” Asif told reporters at Parliament House, when asked about the options available for Pakistan in case of cross-border attacks from Afghanistan.
“If their territory is used and they violate our territory, then, if we need to go deep into Afghanistan to retaliate, we surely will,” he added.
Earlier, when the second round of talks had begun between the two sides on Oct 25, Asif had warned that failure to reach an agreement would mean “open war”.
Speaking further about the persistent issues during the recent dialogue, Asif said the other side acknowledged that the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) must be stopped from carrying out attacks and “that they use our (Afghan) soil”.
“They were agreeing with everything but were not ready to give in writing,” the defence minister said.
“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,” Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said in a post on X.
The Taliban and Afghanistan’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the remarks.
“The Afghan side kept deviating from the core issue … on which the dialogue process was initiated,” Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday, accusing it of engaging in deflection, ruses and playing a “blame game”. “The dialogue thus failed to bring about any workable solution,” he added in a statement.
A Pakistani security source said the Taliban had been unwilling to commit to rein in the TTP. Separately, Pakistan and Afghanistan’s interior ministers met on the sidelines of an Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) summit in Tehran on Wednesday, where the two leaders exchanged handshakes and held brief talks.
Naqvi urged that the Pakistan-Afghanistan issue be resolved through dialogue, likening disputes between nations to disagreements within a household that are settled by talking.