THE first visit of 2026 by Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar to China for Strategic Dialogue on 4th January is significant as it offers an opportunity to explore a way out of the impasse in bilateral and trilateral engagements with the Afghan Taliban government.
Taking stock of the situation in Afghanistan during 2025, it is obvious that the international efforts for long term Afghan peace and stability and the recognition of the over four-year-old Taliban government in the post-US Afghanistan remain in a phase of uncertainty and a continuing struggle despite the Taliban maintaining their control on the ground without any immediate or imminent threat to their regime in the near-term. In this regard, the most challenging and consequential development undoubtedly is the unprecedented decline in relations with Pakistan mainly centring around the differences in perspectives on cross-border militancy particularly Pakistan’s longstanding position regarding the TTP’s presence and support from the Afghan soil and the increasing acts of violence in Pakistan. The fissures in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations have also seriously affected the crucial trilateral engagement between the three neighbours – China, Pakistan and Afghanistan – and Chinese approach of gradual and consistent progress on expanding engagement with Afghanistan under the Taliban government since 2021 as part of its regional calculus of strengthening relations and connectivity with West Asia and Central Asia. The increasing US-China competition signified by the new US stance of acquiring Bagram Airbase during the last year clearly signals that Afghan theatre remains a highly contested field on the emerging global strategic chessboard.
During the first half of 2025, effective trilateral diplomacy was instrumental in the efforts for reconciling differences between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban leadership. Following Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar’s visit to Kabulin April 2025 coinciding with the visit of the Taliban government’s Acting Minister of Commerce Nooruddin Azizi to Islamabad, in May 2025 at the 5th trilateral meeting of the Foreign Ministers in Beijing the three countries expressed commitment to enhance mutual trust and deepen cooperation including in the BRI and CPEC connectivity. Close Pakistan-China cooperation in India-Pakistan four-day war in the beginning of May was instrumental in China asserting its influence on Kabul for rapprochement with Pakistan. At the Chinese behest, Pakistan and Afghanistan also agreed to upgrade their diplomatic relations to Ambassadors level, a measure of symbolic and political significance. Continuing the spike of engagement, the 6thtrilateral meeting between Wang Yi, Dar and Muttaqi tried to build on towards strengthening relations through more exchanges, development cooperation and trade/transit connectivity.
However, despite these bilateral and trilateral manoeuvres the most fundamental question in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations– the issue of TTP sanctuaries in Afghanistan and their linkage to the violence in Pakistan – remained unaddressed. As already by August/September, the year 2025 was moving to be the most violent year for Pakistan in a decade due to TTP and BLA activities surge, Pakistan’s reported strikes in Afghanistan to hit the TTP hideouts and the clashes between the two countries security forces led to the closure of border and suspension of bilateral channels of communication.
The efforts of mediation of Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia in recent months have played a role in de-escalating confrontation and toning down the tempers but short of an agreement on a bilateral mechanism to put the relations back on track. Though in recent weeks, the remarks of the leadership and the senior officials and spokespersons on both sides have emitted signals that the two sides are moving towards a realistic approach of exploring bilateral engagement for normalization of relations, a concrete breakthrough has not yet occurred. The experts and analysts agree that opening bilateral channels of engagement and effectively using the trilateral with China to act as a catalyst in the relations is the best option out of the current Afghan-Pakistan stalemate due to a number of factors:
As there are indications that the ice has now begun to melt in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, the two countries need to approach bilateral relations with greater maturity and farsightedness. Recognizing that security/counter-terrorism with actionable measures against TTP/BLA is prime concern for Pakistan, but a realistic perspective should guide that it can only be achieved through a framework of cooperative bilateral engagement on an agenda that also includes facilitative border management for trade, transit and movement of people. The Afghan Government has also to be realistic that just being dismissive to Pakistan’s concerns regarding the TTP and ascribing TTP as Pakistan’s domestic issue is not a prudent approach and it has to be more responsive to Pakistan’s sensitivities.
In parallel, the trilateral forum between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan can be used for facilitating normalization of relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The trilateral interaction can help in narrowing down gaps between Pakistan and Afghanistan for enacting a bilateral verification mechanism on security and what Pakistan views cross-border terrorism. In conclusion, Pakistan-Afghanistan relations during the past year have reached their lowest ebb. The extreme positions adopted by the two sides against each other have been counterproductive in terms of contribution towards resolution of key issues or preventing the downslide in bilateral relations. China being a strategic partner of Pakistan and an intimate neighbour of Afghanistan is deeply concerned about this situation. The China-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue is definitively an occasion to explore workable solutions towards addressing Pakistan-Afghanistan relations in a natural direction.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Islamabad.
