KHYBER: With no headway in negotiations between Kabul and Islamabad over the issue of a security checkpost on the Afghan side of the border, the Torkham border crossing remained closed for commercial activities and pedestrian movement for the third day on Friday.

Local sources told Dawn that any understanding regarding border reopening hadn’t been reached due to the “hard stance” of the Afghan Taliban’s government in Kabul.

They said that Afghan security officials were uncompromising and didn’t show any flexibility during the ongoing parleys insisting on the establishment of a border check post on their side of the border.

Irshad Ali Momand, a district administration official, told Dawn that things had come to a standstill as the status quo prevailed on the third consecutive day.

When asked about the permission to take the bodies of two Afghans, a woman and a child, he ruled out the possibility of giving any “preferential treatment” to anyone dead or alive until a mutual agreement was reached between Islamabad and Kabul.

Meanwhile, scores of stranded Afghan with women and children among them waited desperately in Landi Kotal on Friday for reopening of the border.

Most stranded men had taken temporary shelter in the main Landi Kotal Bazaar’s mosque with local traders and shopkeepers arranging edibles for them.

Also in the day, a group of civil society activists arranged a peace march in Landi Kotal and demanded authorities of both countries to show the maximum flexibility in the immediate reopening of the border in order to mitigate the sufferings of innocent Afghans.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2023