Pakistan turns up heat over cross-border attacks

Pakistan army troops observe the area from hilltop post on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Aug. 3, 2021. [AP Photo]

A senior Pakistani diplomat said Thursday that while the Taliban had brought peace and security to Afghanistan, increased terrorist attacks from the neighboring country threatened stability in Pakistan, putting strains on an already difficult bilateral relationship.

"Unfortunately, the peace dividends for us are missing," Asif Durrani, Pakistan's special representative on Afghanistan, told an international seminar in Islamabad.

He said his government was engaged in a sustained dialogue with the Taliban to seek an end to the cross-border terrorism orchestrated by fugitive leaders and militants of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a globally designated terrorist organization.

"The TTP attacks on Pakistan along the borders have increased. They are taking shelter on the Afghan soil," the envoy stated.

"I cannot blame the government in Afghanistan at the moment," Durrani stressed. "But we as Pakistan expect that the kind of peace they have brought in their land should also contribute to peace in our borderlands, and those TTP people who are taking shelter in Afghanistan either should be returned to Pakistan or be neutralized."

The seminar was organized by the state-run Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad in collaboration with the United States Institute of Peace.

Surge in militant attacks