Mansoor Ahmad Khan, Pakistan\u2019s former ambassador to Afghanistan, has called on Islamabad to move away from a purely security-driven approach toward Afghanistan and strengthen political engagement with the Taliban administration. He said the shift was necessary to overcome years of tensions between Kabul and Islamabad.<\/p>\n
In an analytical note published in Policy Beacon, he wrote that Afghanistan-Pakistan relations over the past five years, since the Taliban administration returned to power, have faced unprecedented challenges due to cross-border terrorism and geopolitical factors. According to him, security concerns must be taken seriously, but relations between the two sides should not be shaped solely around military and security measures.<\/p>\n
The former diplomat stressed that, alongside effective border management, Pakistan should also facilitate the legal and registered movement of people between the two countries. He described tribal, social and economic ties between the two sides as defining realities in Kabul-Islamabad relations.<\/p>\n
Ahmad Khan also said expanding cross-border trade, transit and economic exchanges are important elements in rebuilding ties, adding that sensitive issues, including the return of refugees and migrants, should be managed in a coordinated and respectful manner that takes field realities into account.<\/p>\n
To rebuild relations between the two countries, he proposed three levels of cooperation: starting political dialogue at the level of prime ministers or foreign ministers, creating institutional cooperation to manage the entire border and prevent cross-border terrorism, and expanding cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan with neighbours and regional partners to strengthen regional connectivity.<\/p>\n
The former Pakistani ambassador also referred to projects such as the TAPI pipeline, the CASA-1000 power transmission project and the railway line between Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan as important opportunities for regional economic cooperation. He added that normalising ties between the two countries does not necessarily require external mediation, although if difficulties persist, the Urumqi initiative can be used within the trilateral mechanism involving China, Pakistan and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Mansoor Ahmad Khan served as Pakistan\u2019s ambassador in Kabul in previous years. Afghanistan-Pakistan relations in recent years, especially since the Taliban administration returned to power, have repeatedly been strained over border security, movement and the issue of refugees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan’s former envoy to Afghanistan urges Islamabad to deepen political ties with the Taliban and move beyond a security-only approach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}