ISLAMABAD: The chief minister of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said this week he would send a delegation to neighboring Afghanistan within two weeks for discussions on ongoing tensions, including cross-border militancy. 
Already strained relations between the neighbors have deteriorated in recent months amid a spike in militant attacks in Pakistan that it blames on insurgents harboring in Afghanistan. Kabul’s Afghan rulers deny state complicity and say they do not allow Afghan soil to be used by militant groups against other nations. 
Last year, KP CM Ali Amin Gandapur said he would hold direct talks with Kabul and send an emissary to Afghanistan to arrange a meeting to resolve outstanding issues. At the time, the central government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a main rival of Gandapur’s PTI party that rules KP, said the offer amounted to a “direct attack on the federation” as no province could open talks with a foreign country, which was the jurisdiction of the government at the center. 
“Now I will have to play my role. We held a provincial meeting and now I am sending a delegation to Afghanistan soon,” Gandapur told reporters on Monday. “Within two weeks a delegation that I am forming will go to Afghanistan and talk to them [Afghan government].”
A second delegation comprising main tribes from KP province would also visit Afghanistan subsequently, the chief minister added. 
“A delegation comprising all tribes will also go and talk to them. I have full faith that they [Afghan authorities] will cooperate with our jirga.”
Islamabad says it has consistently taken up the issue of cross-border attacks with the Taliban administration. The issue has also led to clashes between the border forces of the two countries on multiple occasions in recent months.
In December, the Afghan Taliban said bombardment by Pakistani military aircraft in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province had killed at least 46 people, most of whom were children and women. Just days later, the Afghan defense ministry said Taliban forces targeted “several points” in neighboring Pakistan, further straining tense ties. 
Relations between the two countries have also soured since Pakistan launched a deportation drive in November 2023 against illegal aliens residing in the country. Though Pakistan insists the campaign does not only target Afghans but all those residing in Pakistan unlawfully, it has disproportionately hit Afghans, with at least 800,000 repatriated so far.