Pakistan threatens to ‘obliterate’ Taliban after failed peace negotiations

Pakistan’s defense minister on Wednesday threatened to “obliterate” the Taliban, which controls neighboring Afghanistan, after negotiations toward lasting peace between the two sides failed.

Peace talks wrapped up in Istanbul, Turkey, without a “workable solution,” according to Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, which comes after deadly clashes this month. Dozens were killed along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the worst violence in the area since the Taliban took control of Kabul in 2021.

Negotiations ended with a disagreement over terror groups allegedly using Afghanistan as a base to attack security forces along Pakistan’s border.

“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,” Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said on X.

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The two countries agreed to a ceasefire brokered in Doha, Qatar, on October 19, but they could not find common ground in a second round of talks mediated by Turkey and Qatar in Istanbul, according to Reuters.

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.

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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.

An Afghan source familiar with the talks told the outlet that negotiations ended after “tense exchanges” on the matter, noting that Afghanistan claimed it had no control over the Pakistani Taliban.

The Pakistani Taliban launched attacks against the Pakistani military in recent weeks.

The clashes began earlier this month after Pakistani air strikes targeted the head of the Pakistani Taliban in Kabul and other locations.

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The Taliban retaliated with attacks on Pakistani military posts along the length of the 1,600-mile border that remains closed.

Pakistan’s defense minister said on Saturday that he believed Afghanistan sought peace but that the failure to reach an agreement in Istanbul would mean “open war.”

And despite a ceasefire between Pakistan and the Taliban, clashes over the weekend resulted in the killings of five Pakistani soldiers and 25 Pakistani Taliban members near the border with Afghanistan.

Reuters contributed to this report.