Pakistan rules out talks with Afghanistan as clashes continue

Bilal Hussain, Bloomberg News on Mar 6, 2026

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Pakistan won’t begin talks to end clashes with Afghanistan until Kabul stops supporting and harboring militant groups that launch cross-border attacks from its territory, a spokesman for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.

“There won’t be any talks,” Sharif’s spokesperson for foreign media Mosharraf Zaidi told state-run Pakistan Television on Thursday night. “Terrorism from Afghanistan has to end.”

Mosharraf reiterated a stance taken by Pakistan’s top leaders including the powerful army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, in the past week when a new wave of attacks killed dozens of soldiers from both sides. Kabul, which denies hosting or supporting militants, called for talks last week to end clashes.

The violence risks further destabilizing a region where the U.S., China and India all have significant interests, now compounded by fallout from the U.S. attack on Iran. Rising tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan add another layer of strain, even as both sides signal they may seek to avoid a prolonged conflict.

The two sides have been fighting for more than a week after Afghanistan’s Taliban regime launched retaliatory attacks last week in response to Pakistani air strikes on militant targets. Islamabad declared what it called an “open war” with Afghanistan and began striking military and other facilities deeper inside Afghanistan, including in the capital, Kabul.

Information minister Attaullah Tarar claimed Pakistan has killed a total of 481 Taliban soldiers and militants - a number that could not be verified independently.

The Ministry of National Defense of Afghanistan said in an X post on Thursday that 41 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 12 outposts were destroyed when its forces conducted air strikes on a command headquarter in Ghazaband in Pakistan’s Southwest Balochistan province.

Indirect fire and aerial attacks killed 56 civilians and wounded 129 others in Afghanistan between Feb. 26 and March 5, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a statement on Friday. Air strikes in Paktika province accounted for 14 of the deaths, it said.

Pakistan’s operation is “focused on terrorists and terrorist enabling infrastructure.” according to PM’s spokesperson Zaidi in a text message. He termed Afghan defense ministry’s statement on air strikes as “fake news.”

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have steadily deteriorated since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021 following the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces. The clashes first began last year when Pakistan carried out attacks inside Afghanistan and both sides failed to extend a tenuous truce brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October.

Pakistan initially supported the Taliban’s takeover, hoping the new government would help curb militants operating inside its borders. Instead, those fighters — known as the Pakistani Taliban — have intensified their insurgency across the country. Militant violence has also escalated in the capital, where a bomb blast at a mosque in Islamabad killed at least 31 people earlier this month.

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—With assistance from Eltaf Najafizada.