By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Senior officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan and China convened in Urumqi on Wednesday for the first high-level trilateral meeting in months, an effort to ease escalating border tensions that have all but frozen diplomatic contacts between Islamabad and Kabul since Pakistan launched a military operation into Afghan territory six weeks ago.
The gathering, held under a standing trilateral mechanism, comes after Pakistan’s Feb. 26 cross-border strikes against suspected terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan triggered a sharp deterioration in relations. Diplomatic engagement between the two neighbours had largely ceased in the operation’s aftermath.
A senior Pakistani Foreign Ministry official described the Urumqi meeting as focused narrowly on exchanging views about the recent escalation rather than serving as a formal mediation effort. No major agreements or breakthroughs are expected, the official said, though Beijing is pressing for modest confidence-building steps, including the reopening of key trade routes that have been disrupted by the fighting.
The meeting was arranged at China’s initiative. The official said Beijing asked Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar — who was in the Chinese capital on Tuesday — to ensure Islamabad’s participation after the Afghan side requested Chinese assistance in bringing Pakistan back to the table. China itself has longstanding concerns about the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a transnational militant group that maintains a presence in Afghanistan.
“The Afghan side is showing willingness to walk the talk this time and has agreed to discuss a verifiable mechanism on some of the key demands by Pakistan and China on TTP and ETIM,” the official said, referring to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, the militant network that Islamabad accuses Kabul of sheltering, and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement.
The discussions, which the official characterised as exploratory, are intended to test the seriousness of the Afghan Taliban administration’s commitments. They are being conducted at the director-general level and are being led on the Pakistani side by the additional secretary responsible for the Afghan desk at the Foreign Office.
The Pakistani diplomat was already in China, accompanying the foreign minister, and the delegation included military and intelligence officers. The Afghan delegation comprises officials from the interior and foreign ministries as well as representatives of Afghanistan’s General Directorate of Intelligence.
The talks were held after a sharp rise in terrorist violence inside Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Pakistani officials have repeatedly pressed the Taliban to dismantle sanctuaries used by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and other groups, but those appeals have gone largely unheeded.
Pakistan launched Operation Ghazab lil-Haq on the night of Feb. 26 after what it described as unprovoked firing by Afghan Taliban forces across the border. Islamabad said it initiated the operation against terrorist infrastructure. From March 18 to 23, Pakistan observed a five-day pause in the operation to coincide with Eidul Fitr. The Foreign Office later said the campaign would resume and continue “until its objectives are achieved.” Statements from both sides indicated that requests for de-escalation from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye contributed to the temporary halts.
In early March, Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s chief of army staff and chief of defence forces, said peace between the two countries could prevail only if the Taliban regime “renounced their support for terrorism and terrorist organisations.”
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