Berliner Tageblatt - Taliban govt says Pakistan ceasefire to hold, despite talks failing

The two sides met on Thursday in Turkey to finalise a truce agreed on October 19 in Qatar, following deadly clashes between the South Asian neighbours.

Both have remained tight-lipped on the content of the discussions, which are known only to have addressed long-standing security issues.

"During the discussions, the Pakistani side attempted to shift all responsibility for its security to the Afghan government, while showing no willingness to take responsibility for either Afghanistan's security or its own," Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on social media.

"The irresponsible and uncooperative attitude of the Pakistani delegation has not yielded any results," he said.

At a news conference later on, Mujahid stressed that the ceasefire "will hold".

"There is no issue with the ceasefire previously agreed upon with Pakistan, it will hold," he said.

Neither Islamabad nor mediators immediately commented on the announcement that the talks had failed.

Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar had previously hinted that negotiations in Turkey were falling through, saying that the onus lay on Afghanistan to fulfil pledges to clamp down on terrorism, "which so far they have failed".

"Pakistan shall continue to exercise all options necessary to safeguard the security of its people and its sovereignty," he wrote.

- Demands -

Relations between the one-time allies, who share a 2,600-kilometre (1,600-mile) frontier, have soured in recent years over Islamabad's accusations that Afghanistan harbours militant groups which stage attacks in Pakistan.

The Taliban government has consistently denied the allegations.

Islamabad wants guarantees from Afghanistan's Taliban government that it will stop supporting armed organisations, in particular the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan).

Afghanistan meanwhile wants its territorial sovereignty to be respected and accuses Islamabad of supporting armed groups against it.

Each side has threatened a resumption of hostilities that saw more than 70 people killed and hundreds wounded last month.

The talks were threatened on Friday after each side blamed the other for border fighting in Spin Boldak on the Afghan side.

A district hospital official told AFP that five people were killed in the fighting, including four women and one man.

Afghanistan did not retaliate "out of respect for the negotiating team and to prevent the loss of civilian lives", the Taliban spokesman said.

Islamabad also accuses Afghanistan of acting with the support of India, its historical enemy, during a period of closer ties between the two countries.

N.Fournier--BTB