The collapse of the Istanbul talks this week has once again laid bare the Taliban regime’s duplicity. Pakistan entered the negotiations with a clear and lawful demand–a written, verifiable assurance that Afghan soil would no longer be used by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and allied networks to attack Pakistan. Yet, as the final session closed, the Afghan side baulked, refusing to commit in writing or to allow joint verification. The outcome is a deadlock that threatens not only regional peace but the fragile ceasefire painstakingly brokered in October.
Pakistan’s stance was neither impulsive nor unreasonable. It reflects the exhaustion of a nation that has borne the human and economic cost of terrorism for two decades. Over 90,000 Pakistanis have died in militant violence since 2001, and cross-border attacks surged nearly 70 per cent in the past year alone, according to independent monitoring groups. Islamabad can no longer accept verbal pledges that dissolve as soon as the cameras are switched off.
The Taliban, meanwhile, arrived in Istanbul with no clear agenda, no written proposals, and no willingness to acknowledge Pakistan’s evidence of TTP sanctuaries inside Afghanistan, evidence corroborated by multiple security assessments shared privately with mediators. Instead, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid accused Pakistan of “irresponsibility” and claimed that ordinary families, not militants, had migrated across the border. It was an astonishing act of rhetorical gymnastics, underlining a narrative that seeks to paint seasoned insurgents as innocent migrants and a government defending its borders as an aggressor. Mujahid’s statement, now widely circulated, is dangerous because it erases the distinction between refugees and armed combatants, and it attempts to guilt-trip a country that has hosted millions of Afghans for more than four decades.
That hospitality, however, is reaching its moral and political limit. Pakistan’s recent decision to repatriate undocumented Afghans, implemented humanely but firmly, is not a betrayal of brotherhood, as Kabul insists. It is a sovereign response to a security threat. Islamabad has made it clear that no state, however sympathetic, can allow its goodwill to be exploited by those who offer a safe haven to terrorists. The international community must now face an uncomfortable truth. If Kabul truly believed its territory was free of anti-Pakistan militants, it would welcome a joint monitoring mechanism. Its rejection of that idea speaks louder than any statement.
Pakistan still seeks peace, not confrontation. However, as Defence Minister Khawaja Asif warned before the talks, “if attacks continue from their soil, we will respond accordingly.” The Taliban can either honour their international obligations or stand exposed as a regime that has chosen terror over trust. Either way, Pakistan will protect its people, its sovereignty, and the integrity of the region’s peace. *