ISLAMABAD: Ambas­sador Muhammad Sadiq Khan, Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan, warned on Monday that “all deals with Afgha­nis­tan are off” if the Taliban rulers failed to act on Islamabad’s growing concerns regarding terrorism emanating from Afghan soil, Dawn.com reported.

Pakistani officials have long been saying that leaders of the armed groups operate from Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan. Kabul denies the assertions.

“TTP [Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan] is a challenge, a big challenge for us. It cannot be tolerated because our young kids and boys are getting killed every day.”

“Afghanistan will have to work with us on this. If they are not working with us, then all deals are off. Nothing could have happened. There would be no further progress on anything,” the Pakistani special envoy told a seminar at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI).

His comments came nearly two weeks after he held talks with Afghan Taliban ministers and senior officials on a wide range of issues, focusing on the outlawed TTP and other groups blamed for violence in Pakistan.

Mr Khan had travelled to Afghanistan in December last year, days after he was reappointed the country’s special envoy to the neighbour.

“Pakistan could be very helpful to Afghanistan if we could stop terrorism coming from the other side of the border. I totally would be pragmatic and honest about it,” he further said.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2025