KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban government said Saturday its ceasefire with Pakistan would remain even though their latest talks failed, blaming Islamabad’s “irresponsible and uncooperative” approach.
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”.
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