(Bloomberg) — Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar is in Afghanistan for a day-long visit to hold talks with the country’s Taliban leaders amid a recent deterioration in ties.
Dar, who’s also foreign minister, will have meetings with high-ranking Taliban officials including Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan, Pakistan’s foreign affairs ministry said in a post on X. It’s the first such high-level visit from Pakistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021.
The two sides will discuss “relations in the political, economic, trade and cultural fields, especially the issue of forced deportation of Afghan refugees from that country,” Taliban’s deputy spokesman in Afghanistan, Hamdullah Fitrat, said on X.
Dar’s visit takes place at a time when ties between the two nations are at a low over accusations by Islamabad that the Afghan Taliban have given refuge to the Pakistani militants.
Pakistan is also carrying out a campaign of forcing undocumented Afghans to leave the country by April 30. Nearly a million Afghans have either voluntarily returned or been forcibly deported since September 2023, according to a report by United Nations International Organization for Migration.
Taliban has criticized the move to expel Afghans and called it “heinous.” Afghanistan is already suffering from a struggling economy and a lack of international aid.
Pakistan has partially blamed Afghan citizens, the largest diaspora group living in the country, for a surge in militant attacks. It is fighting multiple insurgent groups, the most notable one is Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, who pledged allegiance to Afghan Taliban. TTP has vowed to target local businesses including listed firms owned by Pakistan’s powerful army.
Pakistan said the return of the Afghan Taliban to power emboldened TTP militants and provided them with weapons, funding, and safe havens on Afghan soil — claims the Taliban have denied. Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan’s security forces, with at least 685 forces killed, according to Dawn news outlet.
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