• Khalilzad warns Pak-Afghan relations may deteriorate further
• Govt says allegations ‘baseless’, misrepresent its counterterrorism operations

KARACHI: The information ministry on Saturday rejected former United States envoy Zalmay Khalilzad’s “baseless and misleading allegations” that Pakistan was “arming Afghans to fight the Taliban”.

The ministry’s response came a day after Mr Khalilzad, who served as the US special representative for Afghanistan during the first Trump administration, claimed on X that there were “many reports that Pakistan is arming Afghans to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan”.

He also alleged that Pakistan was now “recruiting Afghans to fight against anti-Pakistan insurgents”, adding that ties between the two countries were likely to “get much worse”.

“His sweeping baseless assertions merely recycle speculative narratives as part of his personal agenda to prop the terrorism-supporting Taliban regime,” the information ministry’s fact-check account said on X.

It rebuked Mr Khalilzad for making unsubstantiated allegations, stressing that they exposed his “skewed agenda-based views”.

The ministry said it was “particularly misleading to conflate Pakistan’s legitimate counterterrorism operations against terrorist organisations operating from inside Afghan Taliban regime-controlled

areas threatening its citizens with allegations of recruiting Afghan nationals or sponsoring armed groups inside Afghanistan”.

“Pakistan remains at the forefront of the fight against terrorism and has made enormous sacrifices in protecting regional peace and security,” it emphasised.

The ministry pointed out that successive monitoring reports issued by the United Nations had documented the continued presence and activities of terrorist organisations, including the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al Qaeda, inside Afghanistan.

“Khalilzad’s allegations conveniently divert attention from the Afghan Taliban regime’s responsibility to prevent its territory from being used by India-sponsored proxies for terrorism against Pakistan,” the statement added.

Mr Khalilzad, who negotiated a US deal with the Taliban that led to the withdrawal of Nato forces from Afghanistan, has repeatedly called for a negotiated settlement between Islamabad and Kabul, most recently in January this year.

In November last year, the information ministry criticised Mr Khalilzad for “creating a false impression” that the militant Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) group had a presence in Punjab.

The former US envoy had claimed that an IS-K commander was killed in Punjab’s Akhtarabad.

The ministry later clarified that the man had been killed in a robbery-related incident, not a counterterrorism operation, and that there was no evidence linking him to IS-K.

In March 2023, the Foreign Office reacted strongly to a series of suggestions made by Mr Khalilzad, saying Pakistan did not need “unsolicited advice” on the challenges it faced.

His remarks also prompted the US State Department to clarify that the former envoy did not represent US foreign policy and did not speak for the administration of then-president Joe Biden.

Ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan have remained strained in recent years as Islamabad continues to voice its concern over cross-border terrorism.

September saw another round of conflict between the neighbours, with Pakistan carrying out air strikes in the border region in response to terrorist attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

This was followed by drone incursions from across the border, which Islamabad said it had intercepted, and two further rounds of retaliatory air strikes.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2026