Turkish delegation to visit Pakistan to seal Pakistan-Taliban peace deal, says Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said that a high-level delegation will visit Pakistan this week for discussions on the Pakistan-Taliban conflict.

Erdogan said that the visit will be aimed at sealing a permanent ceasefire and peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban as soon as possible, Reuters quoted an official readout as saying.

Erdogan said that the delegation will comprise Turkey’s foreign and defence ministers and intelligence chief plan.

The announcement came a day after Erdogan held talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku.

Turkey has been mediating between Pakistan and Taliban along with Qatar and has held multiple rounds of talks between the two sides in Istanbul. But the two sides have not yet reached a long-term peace agreement.

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Last month, the Taliban and Pakistan had their worst clashes since 2021 after the Taliban said that explosions in Kabul were a result of Pakistani airstrikes. In response, the Taliban launched attacks on Pakistani forces across the Durand Line, the line dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan that the Taliban have long rejected as the two countries’ border. For next two weeks, the two sides had several rounds of clash in which dozens were killed and hundreds were injured.

Taliban will be treated as an enemy, warns Pakistan

Pakistan has continued to blame the Taliban for harbouring groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) —a group separate from Afghanistan’s Taliban— that frequently carry out attacks inside Pakistan and have been engaged in a struggle to overthrow the Pakistani state for decades.

Pakistan on Sunday said that it would start treating the Taliban as an “enemy” if it continued to harbour the TTP — a group it has designated as a terrorist entity.

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The TTP and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) are “declared enemies of the State of Pakistan and its people” and “anyone harbouring, abetting, or financing them is not considered a friend and well-wisher of Pakistan and its people”, The Express Tribune quoted the Foreign Office as saying.

“Instead of acting upon the core expectation from Pakistan, ie, not to allow Afghan territory to be used for attacks against Pakistan, the Taliban regime has always tried to shy away from taking concrete and verifiable actions,” the statement said.