Islamabad on Saturday dismissed claims made by Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US special representative for Afghanistan, that Pakistan is supplying weapons to Afghans to fight the Taliban or enlisting Afghan nationals to go after anti-Pakistan militants. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued the rebuttal in a statement posted on X, calling the accusations unfounded and misleading.
The ministry said Khalilzad was repeating speculative narratives to back what it described as a “terrorism supporting Taliban regime”. It added that his remarks were a personal agenda rather than a reflection of verified facts. The statement was also shared through the ministry’s fact-checking account.
Ministry says counterterrorism operations were wrongly linked to recruitment claims
The ministry argued that it was misleading to tie Pakistan’s counterterrorism operations to claims of recruiting Afghans or backing armed groups inside Afghanistan. According to the statement, the operations target militant organisations based in areas controlled by the Taliban government, which it said were threatening Pakistani citizens. It stressed that Pakistan remains at the forefront of the fight against terrorism and has made heavy sacrifices to protect regional peace and security.
The ministry pointed to successive United Nations monitoring reports, which it said had documented the continued presence and activities of militant groups in Afghanistan, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al-Qaeda. It accused Khalilzad of drawing attention away from what it called the Afghan Taliban government’s duty to stop its territory being used by “Indian sponsored proxies” to carry out attacks against Pakistan. It also described his comments as unsubstantiated and driven by a “skewed agenda”.
Khalilzad, who previously served as the US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, raised the allegations in his own post on X. He wrote that there had been many reports of Pakistan arming Afghans to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. He went on to say that there were now reports of the Pakistani military recruiting Afghans to fight anti-Pakistan insurgents. He warned that relations between the two neighbours were likely to worsen further.
Strained ties and Pakistan’s conditions for talks with Kabul
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have soured in recent months. Islamabad has accused Kabul of sheltering militants behind a rise in attacks inside Pakistan, and it has repeatedly charged the Afghan Taliban government with letting such groups operate from Afghan soil. Kabul denies those accusations. Pakistan has also carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan, which it said targeted militant hideouts. Kabul has condemned the strikes as violations of its sovereignty.
A day before the ministry’s statement, Pakistan said it was willing to hold talks with Afghanistan. It attached two conditions: Kabul must acknowledge that terrorist activity originates from its territory, and it must agree to a verifiable mechanism to prevent such activity. Foreign Office Spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan told his weekly press briefing that Pakistan was not opposed to negotiations and had been in contact with Kabul since 2021.
Khan said Islamabad believed disputes could be settled through dialogue, but he stressed that any engagement must produce concrete results, particularly on cross-border terrorism. He said Afghanistan would need to give assurances that a verifiable mechanism would be set up to control and eliminate terrorist activity originating from its territory. Pakistan remained ready for diplomacy, he added, but talks that made no progress on its security concerns would achieve little.
