Hundreds of trucks stuck as Torkham border remains shut

ISLAMABAD: Torkham border, a key border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan, remained closed for the seventh day as talks between the two sides remained inconclusive, stranding trade convoys and travelers, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

Hundreds of trucks carrying essential goods have since been stranded on both sides since the crossing Torkham border – one of the two main crossings between the neighboring countries – was shut down after an exchange of fire in a dispute.

Sources told ARY News that a meeting was held between Pak-Afghan authorities regarding the closure of Torkham border. However, talks between the two sides remained inconclusive, sources added.

The latest standoff erupted after Taliban guards began constructing a new security post near Torkham border, which Pakistan considers violation of mutual agreements.

On Monday, Pakistan expressed surprised over Afghan foreign ministry’s statement regarding the closure of Torkham border, saying that “interim Afghan authorities know fully well the reasons for the temporary closure” of the border.

In a statement, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that Pakistan could not accept the construction of any structures by the interim Afghan government inside its territory since those violated its sovereignty.

“On the 6th of September, instead of a peaceful resolution, Afghan troops resorted to indiscriminate firing, targeting Pakistan military posts, damaging the infrastructure at the Torkham Border Terminal, and putting the lives of both Pakistani and Afghan civilians at risk, when they were stopped from erecting such unlawful structures,” she commented.

She said that such unprovoked and indiscriminate firing on Pakistani border posts could not be justified under any circumstances.

The spokesperson said that the unprovoked firing by Afghan border security forces invariably emboldened the terrorist elements. These elements are enjoying sanctuaries inside Afghanistan as confirmed by the UN Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team in its latest report, she added.

Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan share 18 crossing points, the busiest of which are the Torkham and Chaman, which connect Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province with Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province.

Pakistan has seen an uptick in terrorist attacks since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.

Meanwhile, Interim foreign minister, Jalil Abbas Jilani, sent a demarche to the Afghan charge d’affaires in the wake of a terrorist attack on two military posts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Chitral district earlier this week.