MELBOURNE, 13 October 2025 — Recent clashes between Afghan and Pakistani security forces along their border, following Pakistani air strikes on Kabul, have dominated global headlines.
During a media conference on his recent visit to India, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, quoted by ANI, said: “If Pakistan does not want peace, Afghanistan has other options as well. If Pakistan wants peace, they have a bigger army and better intelligence — why are they not controlling it? This fight is inside Pakistan. Instead of blaming us, they should control the issues in their territory. Why is Pakistan not taking its people into confidence? Many people in Pakistan, and certainly we, do not want the fight to continue. But Pakistan should take control of these groups. Why endanger its own people to please a few?”
The tensions have deep historical roots and come amid closer Afghan-India relations. The 2,640 km (1,640 mile) frontier, known as the Durand Line, was drawn in 1893 by British diplomat Mortimer Durand and Afghanistan’s Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. No Afghan government has ever officially recognised it as an international border, regarding it as a colonial imposition that split Pashtun and Baloch tribal lands. The Taliban, despite earlier pragmatic ties with Pakistan, maintain this historical stance. Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to fence the border have been opposed by Kabul.
Pakistan’s main grievance concerns the alleged activities of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, in Afghanistan. Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring the TTP, which carries out deadly attacks inside Pakistan. Afghanistan’s Taliban government denies the charge, but the matter has become a major flashpoint. Relations have further soured since the Taliban came to power in 2021, with disputes over border fencing and Pakistan’s mass expulsion of Afghan citizens emerging as key points of friction.
“There is no presence of TTP in Afghanistan now. Even before our return to Kabul, the Pakistan military conducted operations in tribal areas that displaced large numbers of people. The US military and the US-supported former government gave them refuge on Afghan soil. They are Pakistani nationals from displaced areas and are allowed to live in Afghanistan as refugees. The Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Durand Line, is more than 2,400 km long. It could neither be controlled by ‘Changez’ nor ‘Angrez’,” Muttaqi said at the Delhi media conference.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has strongly condemned Afghanistan’s “provocations” in the border region, stating that the Pakistan army had delivered a “powerful response” to Afghan aggression. President Asif Ali Zardari also declared there would be “no compromise” on Pakistan’s sovereignty, according to Xinhua news agency.
The escalation along the porous Durand Line — intertwined with Afghanistan’s warming ties with India, as well as strategic manoeuvring by China, Russia and India for influence in Taliban-ruled Kabul, and Saudi-Pakistan defence pacts — underscores growing regional volatility.
Also,Pakistan is irked by the words , ‘ Jammu and Kashmir, India’, in the – Joint India-Afghanistan Statement, 10 Oct., 2025 – as meaning Jammu & Kashmir is part of India and protested against it.
With India’s embassy operating in Kabul and the India–Pakistan confrontation of May 2025 still fresh in memory, South Asia’s simmering tensions remain firmly anchored in present geopolitical rivalries and long-standing historical legacies.
* Senior journalist based in Melbourne, South Asia analyst & Editor of South Asia Times (SAT).
