Rahmatullah Najib, a senior Taliban official who led their delegation in talks with Pakistan, said on Wednesday that they would think about allowing Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) members to relocate to Afghanistan if the Pakistani government calls the group “good people” instead of terrorists.
Najib, who is also the Taliban’s deputy interior minister, told a press conference in Kabul that the proposal was discussed during the recent talks in Istanbul – which ended without any formal agreement.
“We told them: If you declare these individuals to be decent people, then we will consider how to bring them over so that you can be rid of them,” Najib said. “But if you call them terrorists and we agree to transfer them, you’ll just say the Islamic Emirate is supporting terrorists.”
Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban of sheltering TTP fighters who launch attacks from Afghanistan’s territory — a charge the Taliban deny. The United Nations estimated in September that the group has approximately 6,000 fighters based inside Afghanistan.
Najib also said Pakistan had made further demands during the Istanbul talks, including that the Taliban issue a religious decree, or fatwa, against “all the wars against the Pakistani government”.
“We told them that we don’t give ourselves the right to approve the ongoing wars there (in Pakistan), and we also don’t have the right to declare these wars illegitimate, because they don’t belong to us… Then why should we issue such fatwa,” he explained.
He added that they told the Pakistani side that the fatwa is not related to their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, but it is a duty by the Darul Iftaa, or the Religious Rulings Authority.
According to him, even if Pakistan asks such authority to issue a fatwa, the result may not be the same as Pakistan wants as they would issue their decision based on Sharia.
He said that Islamabad also requested that the Taliban assume responsibility for preventing all acts of violence within Pakistan’s borders — a request he described as unrealistic.
“They asked us to guarantee that not even one security incident happens in Pakistan,” Najib said. “With these kinds of demands, no progress will be possible.”
The Taliban official emphasized that they do not see themselves as authorized to issue religious rulings concerning conflicts in another country. “We don’t have the right to determine whether the war in Pakistan is justified or not,” he added.
The remarks came amid rising tensions between the two sides following weeks of cross-border friction and failed diplomacy. Since an eight-day military standoff earlier in October, the Taliban and Pakistani officials have held three rounds of talks — one in Doha and two in Istanbul — with mediation by Qatar and Turkey. Only the first round resulted in a cease-fire agreement. Subsequent sessions concluded without any breakthrough.
The standoff has had economic consequences as well. Border crossings between the two countries have now been closed for more than a month, disrupting trade and straining relations.
On Wednesday, Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy chief minister for economic affairs, said in a public address that the Taliban would only reopen the trade routes if Pakistan offered written assurances that they would not be shut down again.
“If Pakistan wants the trade routes reopened, there must be firm guarantees,” Baradar said. “They should not be closed again under any circumstances.”
Taliban commerce minister Nooruddin Azizi echoed the warning, saying Afghanistan would halt bilateral trade if Islamabad continued what he called one-sided conditions. “You heard it for yourself,” Azizi told traders at the meeting. “If there’s no equality and no guarantee of open roads, there will be no trade. We will open hundreds of other routes.”
The diplomatic rift has deepened amid renewed violence in Pakistan. On Monday, a suicide bombing near a district court in Islamabad killed 12 people and wounded more than 30. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Islamabad has cited such attacks as evidence of TTP’s operational presence in Afghanistan — a claim the Taliban reject.
