TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday urged Afghanistan and Pakistan to show restraint and hold talks as the two countries have traded fire.
Writing in Urdu and Farsi on his X account, Araghchi said, “In the auspicious fasting month of Ramadan, the month of restraint and consolidation of unity in the Islamic world, it is crucial for Afghanistan and Pakistan to manage and settle existing differences within the framework of good neighborliness and through dialogue.”
He added, “The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to facilitate dialogue and cooperation between the two countries.”
Early on Friday, Pakistan launched air strikes on Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, as well as on Kandahar and Paktia, Al Jazeera reported.
The attacks targeted Taliban military installations as Islamabad declared “open war” on the Taliban government, in the most serious military confrontation between the two neighbors in years.
The strikes came hours after Afghan forces launched coordinated cross-border attacks on Pakistani military positions in six border provinces late on Thursday. Kabul claimed 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 19 outposts captured.
The exchanges have shattered a ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Qatar, which was reached after 10 days of deadly border fighting in October killed more than 70 people on both sides. Subsequent negotiations in Doha and Istanbul failed to produce a formal agreement.
What is unfolding now, analysts say, is categorically more dangerous, with no framework in place to contain it.
Pakistan’s rationale for Friday’s heavy attacks lies in a renewed wave of violence at home. On February 6, a suicide bomber killed at least 36 people at a Shia mosque in Islamabad. This was followed, days later, by another incident in which an explosives-laden vehicle rammed a security post in Bajaur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing 11 soldiers and a child. Pakistani authorities said the attacker was an Afghan national and issued a demarche to the Afghan deputy head of mission in Islamabad.
On February 21, another suicide bomber struck a security convoy in Bannu, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing two soldiers.
Those attacks prompted Pakistan’s first round of strikes last weekend inside Afghanistan, targeting what it said were hideouts linked to armed groups, particularly the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP.
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