Hours after Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced that the Pak-Afghanistan dialogue in Istanbul “failed to bring about any workable solution”, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has issued a stern warning to the Afghan Taliban.
In a post on X, the defence minister said that Pakistan had engaged in talks at the request of brotherly countries in an effort to give peace a chance, but “venomous statements” by certain Afghan officials clearly reflected the devious and splintered mindset of the Taliban regime.
“Let me assure them that 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. If they wish so, the repeat of the scenes of their rout at Tora Bora with their tails between the legs would surely be a spectacle to watch for the people of the region,” he said.
The defence minister further said that it was sad to see how the Taliban regime was “blindly pushing Afghanistan into yet another conflict just to retain its usurped rule and maintain the war economy that sustains them”.
“Despite fully knowing their inherent limitations and hollowness of their war cries, they are beating the war drums to maintain their crumbling facade. If the Afghan Taliban regime is madly hellbent upon ruining Afghanistan and its innocent people once again then so be it.”
On the Afghan narrative of “graveyard of empires”, Asif said Pakistan certainly didn’t claim to be an empire but Afghanistan was “definitely a graveyard, surely for its own people”.
“Never a graveyard of empires but certainly a playground of empires you have been throughout history,” he said, adding that the warmongers amongst the Taliban regime, “who have vested interests in the continuation of instability” in the region, should know that they have probably misread Pakistan’s resolve and courage.
“If the Taliban regime wants to fight us, the world will INSHAALLAH see that their threats are only performative circus!”
He went on to say that Pakistanis have “borne Afghanistan’s treachery and mockery for too long, but no more”.
“Any terrorist attack or any suicide bombing inside Pakistan shall give you the bitter taste of such misadventures. Be rest assured and test our resolve and capabilities, if you wish so, at your own peril and doom,” he concluded.
Asif posted the statement hours after Tarar said that Pakistan had repeatedly engaged with the Afghan Taliban over “persistent cross-border terrorism” by Indian-abetted Fitna al Khawarij and Indian proxy Fitna al Hindustan.
“The Afghan Taliban regime have been asked time and again to fulfil their written commitments to Pakistan and to the international community in the Doha Agreement. However, Pakistan’s fervent efforts proved futile due to the Afghan Taliban regime’s unabated support to anti-Pakistan terrorists,” Tarar said.
“Since the Taliban regime bears no responsibility towards the people of Afghanistan and thrives on a war economy, it desires to drag and mire the Afghan people into a needless war,” he said.
The minister said Pakistan had always desired and sacrificed for the peace and prosperity of the Afghan people. “In the same spirit, Pakistan has held countless rounds of talks and parleys with the Afghan Taliban regime but, unfortunately, they have always remained indifferent to Pakistan’s losses. Sadly, after sustaining such huge losses of men and material for four long years, Pakistan’s patience has run its course.”
He explained that to “give peace a chance” and at the request of Qatar and Turkiye, Pakistan engaged with the Afghan Taliban first in Doha and then in Istanbul. The focus was a single-point agenda: to ensure the Afghan Taliban stop terrorist organisations from using Afghan soil as a “training-cum-logistics base and jump off point for terrorist activities in Pakistan”.
Tarar thanked Qatar and Turkiye for facilitating the talks and for their efforts to convince Kabul to “desist from the use of terror proxies as leverage against Pakistan.” But he reiterated that the Afghan side kept moving away from the main issue.
“Over the last four days of dialogue, the Afghan Taliban delegation repeatedly agreed to Pakistan’s logical and legitimate demand for credible and decisive action against [militant] organisations and terrorists. Sufficient and irrefutable evidence was provided by Pakistan which was acknowledged by Afghan Taliban and the hosts, however, regrettably, the Afghan side gave no assurance,” Tarar said.
“The Afghan side kept deviating from the core issue, evading the key point upon which the dialogue process was initiated. Instead of accepting any responsibility, the Afghan Taliban resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses. The dialogue thus failed to bring about any workable solution,” he wrote.
Tarar again thanked the governments of Qatar, Turkiye, and other friendly states for their efforts to “bring about a peaceful solution to the problem of terrorism, for the prosperity and security of the two countries and the region at large”.
“The security of its people is of paramount importance to Pakistan. We will continue to take all possible measures necessary to protect our people from the menace of terrorism and assure them that the government of Pakistan will continue to employ all the resources which are required in this regard to decimate the terrorists, their sanctuaries, their abetters and supporters,” he said.
