Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of harbouring the Pakistan Taliban, a charge Kabul denies.
Published On 30 Oct 2025
Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to extend a ceasefire for at least another week during talks in Turkiye, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
The sides plan to meet again at a higher-level gathering in Istanbul on November 6 to finalise how the ceasefire will be implemented, the ministry said in a statement released on behalf of Pakistan, Afghanistan and mediators Turkiye and Qatar.
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“All parties have agreed to put in place a monitoring and verification mechanism that will ensure maintenance of peace and imposing penalty on the violating party,” the statement read.
The two neighbours engaged in a weeklong border conflict earlier this month following explosions in Afghanistan, which the Afghan government blamed on Pakistan.
In the subsequent cross-border strikes, Pakistan’s military claimed it killed more than 200 Afghan fighters, while Afghanistan says it killed 58 Pakistani soldiers.
It was the most serious fighting between the two countries since the Taliban regained control of Kabul in 2021.
After the skirmishes, mediation by Qatar and Turkiye led to a ceasefire signed by the defence ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan on October 19 in Doha.
The two nations — which share a 2,600-kilometre (1,600-mile) frontier — began a second round of talks in Istanbul on Saturday, which broke down Wednesday when both parties failed to reach a consensus on Islamabad’s central demand that Kabul crack down on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, an armed group often called the Pakistan Taliban or TTP, which has been long acc