A senior Taliban official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Amu on Wednesday that a key sticking point in this week’s negotiations with Pakistan in Istanbul was a demand to curtail the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — a request the Taliban refused, calling it “not their responsibility.”
The Taliban source said the Pakistani delegation had pushed for explicit guarantees that the Afghan side would prevent cross-border attacks by TTP militants. The Taliban, in turn, argued that their obligation only extends to preventing attacks originating from Afghan soil — not policing a group they consider Pakistan’s internal issue.
“We made it clear that if anyone tries to launch an attack from Afghanistan into Pakistan, we will stop them,” the Taliban official said. “But what happens inside Pakistan is not our task.”
In response, the Taliban delegation presented its own set of concerns. According to the same official, they requested that Islamabad prevent the Islamic State (ISIS-K) from using Pakistani territory to launch attacks into Afghanistan — an issue the Afghan side claims has grown in recent months.
A third Taliban demand was the cessation of Pakistani drone flights over Afghan airspace. “The Pakistani side failed to commit to any of these three issues,” the official said.
Talks end in stalemate
The comments come a day after the collapse of four days of talks in Istanbul, mediated by Qatar and Turkey, which ended without a breakthrough. Both sides have since accused one another of derailing the process.
Islamabad has long maintained that the TTP operates freely from Afghan territory and poses a growing threat to Pakistani security. The Taliban, for their part, insist that they do not support the group and have no formal ties — a claim Pakistani officials have consistently challenged.
Tensions escalated further after recent remarks from Pakistan’s Defense Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, who issued a stern warning to the Taliban leadership.
Writing on X, Asif said: “We don’t even need to use much of our arsenal to dismantle the Taliban regime and drive them back into the caves.” He described recent Taliban statements as “malicious” and a reflection of what he called a “fractured and delusional mindset.”
His comments came in response to a warning issued by Taliban deputy foreign minister Mohammad Naeem Wardak, who vowed that any aggression from Pakistan would be met with a “decisive and crushing” response.
“The Pakistani military regime should know that any attack will be met with equal force,” Wardak posted on X.
