Pakistan keeps providing space to Kabul on the table, and Kabul keeps answering with denials. That gap explains why talks have gone nowhere. Islamabad simply wants proof that terrorists no longer use Afghan soil to attack Pakistan, and any government in its place would ask for the same.
Foreign Office spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan made the case plainly at the weekly briefing on Oct. 17. Pakistan is “not averse to dialogue and negotiations” and welcomes sincere efforts by friendly countries, Amu TV reported. Talks cannot be unconditional, Dawn reported, and they need a verifiable mechanism ensuring “complete cessation of terrorist activities emanating from Afghan soil.”
Nobody should accuse Pakistan of stinginess with diplomacy. Qatar and Türkiye brokered a ceasefire in Doha in October 2025. Talks in Istanbul collapsed the following month. China hosted a round in Urumqi in April. Pakistan kept showing up. Then came the Moscow Format consultations on Oct. 5, which ended without a joint statement. Khan said the Taliban regime delegation rejected language on terrorist networks that it had accepted a year earlier. One analyst told Al Jazeera that accepting such language “could be seen as an acknowledgement.” If a sentence feels like an admission, the problem lies in what it describes.
Kabul cannot dismiss this as Pakistani perspective alone. A February 2025 report from the U.N. Security Council’s monitoring team counted more than 600 Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacks inside Pakistan between July and December 2024, launched from Afghan territory. The December 2025 report called the Taliban’s claim that no terrorist groups operate in Afghanistan “not credible,” Dawn reported. It put TTP strength at about 6,000 fighters, mostly in Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktika and Paktia provinces. Those are the conclusions of neutral monitors.
The violence has not waited for diplomats. Security sources said Taliban regime opened fire in Upper Kurram on Oct. 18 to cover the infiltration of terrorists, and Pakistani troops returned fire, Dawn reported. Pakistan also struck terrorist hideouts inside Afghanistan on Oct. 1 and said it killed 22 terrorists.
The steps Kabul must take are not mysterious. It can dismantle TTP infrastructure, restrict terrorist movement across the border and cooperate on preventing attacks. Denials do not change a toll counted in Pakistani lives and disrupted communities. Trust will follow results.
The Taliban regime also have money on the table. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry puts bilateral trade at about $1.998 billion in fiscal 2024-25. State Bank figures reported by the Associated Press of Pakistan show Pakistani exports to Afghanistan rising 38.68 percent to $773.9 million. Border closures hurt Kabul most. U.N. monitors estimated that they cost the Afghan economy about $1 million a day. A government that cares about its economy has every reason to act on the terrorists.
Russia has offered to mediate if both sides ask, Zamir Kabulov, Moscow’s special representative for Afghanistan, told TASS, according to Al Jazeera. Khan said he knew of no formal initiative but that Pakistan values its contacts with Moscow. Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev met Field Marshal Asim Munir in Rawalpindi on Oct. 14. Pakistan should welcome that interest. It chairs the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this year and will host its summit in 2027, so it has standing to ask that any mediation address the security question first.
Islamabad has rejected neither Afghanistan nor diplomacy. It asks Kabul to match talk with action. The Taliban regime cannot expect stable relations with a neighbor they leave exposed to terrorist attacks. Acting against the groups that target Pakistan would test Islamabad’s offer far better than another round of statements.
