A cease-fire announced by Afghanistan and Pakistan on Sunday has brought respite from the worst flare-up of tensions between the neighboring countries in years.
For nearly two weeks, Afghanistan and Pakistan exchanged military attacks that killed dozens of people, injured hundreds and threatened to turn into full-on conflict.
After meeting in Doha on Saturday under the mediation of Qatar and Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan vowed to de-escalate and to meet again later this month. “Terrorism from Afghanistan on Pakistan’s soil will be stopped immediately,” Pakistan’s minister of defense, Khawaja Asif, said on social media on Sunday.
“Neither country will undertake any hostile actions against the other,” Zabiullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, wrote on X. There was no joint statement.
Despite the lull, Pakistan has a resilient Taliban problem, analysts and former diplomats say, and the quagmire remains nearly impossible to resolve without strong measures that neither side has been willing to take so far.
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