Since October, Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban have engaged in three rounds of talks aimed at ending the escalating tensions between the two neighbours.
The first two meetings, held in Doha and Istanbul, produced an agreement on the ceasefire. However, the most recent round held in early November focused on critical issues such as counterterrorism cooperation, border management and technicalities of the ceasefire extension. The meeting concluded in a stalemate despite international mediation and facilitation.
The impasse stemmed primarily from the Afghan Taliban’s persistent refusal to meet Pakistan’s legitimate demand that Afghan territory should not be used by the TTP, BLA or other such militant groups to launch terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.
This deadlock is neither surprising nor unprecedented. In fact, it reflects a recurring pattern of the Afghan Taliban’s unwillingness to honour their commitments and take decisive actions against the militant groups operating from its soil. There is a need to understand this deadlock in the backdrop of the Taliban’s unfulfilled promises on counterterrorism made during several agreements, but primarily in the February 2020 Doha peace agreement with the US and the trilateral agreement with the UAE and Pakistan in 2024.
In the Doha Peace Agreement, the Afghan Taliban committed to not allowing Afghan soil to be used by terrorists to challenge regional and global peace. Despite their assurances, they faltered on the promises. A particularly revealing episode in this regard was the killing of Aymen al-Zawahiri in July 2022 in a drone strike in Kabul. The then Biden administration in the US condemned the Taliban for harbouring Zawahiri, characterising the act as a flagrant violation of the peace agreement and betrayal of international trust.
In 2022, a UN Committee report on international terrorist groups identified Afghanistan – under the rule of the Afghan Taliban – as a principal safe haven for Al Qaeda and other foreign militant groups with whom the Taliban have maintained close ties, including the TTP, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Khatiba Imam al-Bukhari, Islamic Jihad Group (IJG), East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and Jamaat Ansarullah.
Multiple international reports have confirmed the continued presence and activities of the TTP inside Afghanistan, repeatedly urging the Taliban to take decisive action against them. The 36th UN Monitoring Report (2025) explicitly highlighted the Taliban regime’s links with both the TTP and Al-Qaeda, while the 66th Quarterly Report of SIGAR (January 2025) citing UN estimates indicating that between 6000 and 6500 TTP fighters along with a dozen senior Al-Qaeda leaders remain active in Afghanistan.
Likewise, in September 2024, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, called on the Afghan Taliban to prevent terrorist groups from using Afghan territory to launch attacks against Pakistan or any other neighboring country. Collectively, these findings expose the Taliban’s repeated breaches of commitments made in the Doha Agreement, underscoring the widening gap between their diplomatic pledges and their actions on the ground.
Another significant pledge made by the Taliban came under the 2024 trilateral agreement with the UAE and Pakistan, in which they vowed to relocate TTP fighters away from the border regions in return for financial assistance from the UAE. However, the implementation of this agreement fell significantly short of its promises. Instead of curbing militancy, the TTP threat to Pakistan has continued and even intensified.
The Taliban have received substantial funds in humanitarian aid from the international community, including the US and UN. Disturbingly, emerging reports indicate that portions of this funding have been diverted by the Taliban to the TTP, effectively channelling humanitarian assistance into terrorism financing.
The Afghan Taliban’s pattern of duplicity has demonstrated that their assurances are transactional and strategically motivated, aimed at gaining legitimacy and financial benefits rather than fostering genuine peace. Their inability to distance themselves from terrorist actors exposes the hollowness of their claims to be a responsible governing entity. Every unkept promise chips away at their credibility and reinforces the perception that they view peace agreements as tactical pauses rather than genuine commitments. Their refusal to act against the TTP and other militant outfits reflects not only ideological affinity but also a calculated strategy to maintain leverage over Pakistan and the broader region. As long as the Taliban leadership views militant proxies as instruments of influence, any negotiation or agreement will be a hollow exercise.
For Pakistan and the international community, the way forward requires a firm recalibration of expectations that should be rooted in realism rather than misplaced optimism. Islamabad must recognise that countering the threat of the TTP requires a multidimensional approach, combining robust border management, targeted intelligence operations and diplomatic engagement with the regional and global partners to exert sustained pressure on the Taliban regime.
Engagement with the Afghan Taliban must not be guided by their rhetoric, but by their firm actions. Unless the Taliban take concrete steps to dismantle terrorist networks operating on their borders, their pledges – whether made in Doha, Ankara or Kabul – will remain nothing more than words on paper. The Afghan Taliban must decide whether they wish to be a partner for stability or a perpetual source of turmoil. So far, their record leaves little room for optimism.
The writer is an assistant professor at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
