Three Rounds of Talks Fail; Türkiye Moves To Reengage Pakistan & Taliban
With three rounds of negotiations having failed, a high-level Turkish delegation led by the head of Türkiye’s intelligence agency is expected to travel to Islamabad next week.
With three rounds of negotiations having failed, a high-level Turkish delegation led by the head of Türkiye’s intelligence agency is expected to travel to Islamabad next week.
İrfan Neziroğlu, Türkiye’s ambassador to Pakistan, said on Friday that the delegation would include the director of the Turkish intelligence organisation and several senior officials. Türkiye’s energy minister, Alparslan Bayraktar, will also accompany the team.
The planned visit was first mentioned by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a meeting with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Baku.
Highlighting Ankara’s security concerns, Neziroğlu said Türkiye wanted to ensure that no individual or group used Afghan territory to enter Pakistan and carry out terrorist attacks. He said the two neighbouring countries should be able to live “as brothers” and that Türkiye was committed to helping achieve that goal.
Türkiye and Qatar have jointly mediated recent talks between Pakistan and the Taliban, but three rounds of negotiations in Doha and Istanbul have ended without progress. Iran and Russia have also begun attempting to play a mediating role, with Iran planning a regional meeting focused on easing Taliban–Pakistan tensions.
Diplomatic and trade relations between Islamabad and the Taliban authorities remain strained. The Taliban are seeking to expand diplomatic and economic ties with other countries to offset the fallout. The Taliban’s commerce minister is currently in India and has recently visited Iran.
Taliban officials have also been looking for alternative trade routes. Before travelling to India, the Taliban commerce minister held discussions in Iran about increasing the use of ports such as Chabahar and Bandar Abbas as substitutes for Karachi and other Pakistani ports.
Pakistan has said that the normalisation of relations will only be possible if the Taliban demonstrate cooperation and take concrete action against militant groups — particularly Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
