ISLAMABAD: A senior Afghan Taliban leader arrived in Islamabad for talks with Pakistani officials on key issues, focusing on ways to reduce tension, Pakistani and Afghan officials told The Pakistan Daily late Tuesday.
Mullah Shirin, governor of Kandahar, will be leading a delegation of senior officials, in talks at a time when a spike in the attacks by the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has deteriorated relations between the two uneasy neighbours.
The delegation is composed of officials from the foreign and interior ministries as well as intelligence, according to an Afghan source.
Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq said in November there was a 60 per cent increase in terrorism and a 500 per cent spike in suicide bombings since the Afghan Taliban came to power in August 2021.
Mullah Shirin, who is one of the close confidants of the Taliban supreme leader Sheikh Haibtauulah Akhund, is also the head of a Taliban commission that regularly holds talks with Pakistani on solutions to problems along the border.
An Afghan and a Pakistani official said that the talks will start on Wednesday to discuss ways to address each other’s security concerns.
Pakistan now publicly blames the Afghan Taliban for their failure to take action against the TTP, which security officials insist use Afghan soil against Pakistan.
Kabul denies Islamabad’s statement and says it does not allow anyone to use Afghan soil against Pakistan or any other country. Afghan officials also say they are not responsible for attacks inside Pakistan.
“Pakistan will raise the issue of the TTP activities in Pakistan and will reiterate our demand of the Afghan interim government to deny sanctuaries to the TTP and other anti-Pakistani groups,” a Pakistani official said.
The official, requesting not to be identified, said that Pakistan has already shared details of the TTP leaders and their bases inside Afghanistan.
Sources told The Pakistan Daily that an Afghan delegation had visited Pakistan last month, however, those talks failed to produce any results.
The Pakistani side had pressed the Afghan side to send another delegation of senior officials for more discussion.
Two yearly reports from an Islamabad-based think tank said Pakistan witnessed another year of a surge in terrorist attacks as Pakistan saw a 69 per cent increase in attacks, leading to an 81pc increase in deaths.
“The year 2023 witnessed at least 641 militant attacks across the country in which 974 people were killed and 1,351 injured. The year 2022 witnessed 380 militant attacks resulting in 539 deaths and 836 injuries… By combining militant attacks and security forces actions the country saw over one thousand violent incidents in which 1,511 people were killed and 1,440 injured,” the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) said in its 2023 report.
The annual security report issued by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) this week said that Pakistan witnessed a total of 1,524 violence-related deaths in 2023 from 789 terror attacks and counter-terror operations. The casualties include around 1,000 deaths among civilians and security forces personnel.
Pakistan had summoned and handed over a demarche to the Afghan charge d’ affaires Sardar Ahmad Shokaib after at least 23 security officials were martyred on Dec. 12 in Dera Ismail Khan.
Pakistani security officials later said that Afghans were among a group of six terrorists who rammed an explosive-laden truck into a security forces’ check-post in the general area of Daraban.
