Pakistan’s defense minister issued a sharp warning to Afghanistan’s Taliban government on Wednesday, vowing to “obliterate” the group after negotiations for a lasting peace between the two sides fell apart.
Peace talks, held in Istanbul and mediated by Turkey and Qatar, ended without progress, Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said. The breakdown follows a month of deadly border clashes — the worst since the Taliban seized control of Kabul in 2021 — that left dozens dead along the 1,600-mile frontier separating the two countries.
The key dispute centered on terror groups allegedly using Afghan territory to launch attacks inside Pakistan. (RELATED: Taliban Cuts Internet For 43 Million Residents Of Afghanistan)
“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,” Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said in a post on X.
A ceasefire brokered in Doha on October 19 failed to hold as both sides blamed the other for derailing follow-up talks in Istanbul. Pakistan accused the Taliban of avoiding the main issue — Islamabad’s demand that Afghanistan crack down on the Pakistani Taliban, a separate militant group accused of launching attacks on Pakistani forces from Afghan soil.
Both countries blamed the other for the talks falling apart.
“The Afghan side kept deviating from the core issue … on which the dialogue process was initiated,” Pakistan’s information minister said on Wednesday, accusing the Taliban of engaging in deflection, ruses and playing a “blame game.”
“The dialogue thus failed to bring about any workable solution,” he said.
A Pakistani security source told Reuters that the Taliban had been unwilling to agree to reining in the Pakistani Taliban, a separate terror group that Pakistan says operates without consequences from inside Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, Pakistan carried out airstrikes targeting the leader of the Pakistani Taliban in Kabul and other locations. The Taliban responded with attacks on Pakistani military posts, leading to renewed fighting despite the temporary ceasefire.
Over the weekend, clashes near the border killed five Pakistani soldiers and 25 members of the Pakistani Taliban, according to Pakistani officials.
Defense Minister Asif said Afghanistan “claims to want peace,” but warned that the failure in Istanbul now points toward “open war.”
