ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to enhance trade and connectivity during a visit to Kabul by top officials from Islamabad, the foreign office said on Friday, amid a push by the two neighbors to reset soured relations.
Pakistan-Afghanistan relations have been strained by a spike in militancy in Pakistan’s western regions that border Afghanistan, following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in 2021. Islamabad says anti-Pakistan militants carry out cross-border attacks using safe havens in Afghanistan, a charge Kabul denies.
Another source of tension has been Pakistan’s decision to expel undocumented Afghans and those who had temporary permission to stay, saying it can no longer cope. Since November 2023 when Islamabad first launched the deportation drive against illegal foreigners, over 900,000 Afghans have left the country. The Afghan government has condemned the “unilateral measures” to forcibly deport tens of thousands of Afghans. Afghans have also reported weeks of arbitrary arrests, extortion and harassment by authorities as Islamabad has accelerated the deportation drive since April, a charge officials deny.
Amid these tensions, Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and special envoy to Kabul, Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq, went to Afghanistan on a one-day visit last week widely seen as an attempt to resolve outstanding issues of contention.
“During the visit, the deputy prime minister [and] foreign minister held meetings with the acting Afghan prime minister, acting Afghan deputy prime minister and acting Afghan foreign minister,” Shafqat Ali Khan, a Pakistani foreign office spokesperson, told reporters at a weekly news briefing in Islamabad.
“Both sides held extensive discussions on a range of issues including peace and security, people-to-people contacts and agreed to enhance bilateral trade and economic cooperation to the mutual benefit of people of both countries.”
Pakistan remains at loggerheads with two of its main neighbors, India and Afghanistan, while Islamabad’s relations with Iran have also seen friction in recent weeks over the killing of eight Pakistani laborers in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province. Both Pakistan and Iran last year exchanged strikes against what they called militant hideouts, but quickly moved to de-escalate tensions.
This week, an attack on tourists in India’s Himalayan territory of Kashmir has sparked a new crisis between nuclear armed neighbors India and Pakistan, with New Delhi blaming militants with “cross-border linkages” for the killings, which Islamabad denies. Both nations have announced tit-for-tat measures to downgrade ties in the aftermath of the violence.
The tensions have come as Pakistan navigates a tricky path to economic recovery, seeking to boost trade by enhancing connectivity with regional countries and attract foreign investment from allies in the region and beyond.
In this regard, Dar on Thursday held a telephonic conversation with Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Seyedov Bakhtiar Odilovic and apprised him of his discussions with Afghan officials about a tri-nation railway line project involving Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“The deputy prime minister shared his discussions in Kabul regarding Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway line project and hoped that the three countries would soon sign the framework agreement for this important regional connectivity project,” the foreign office spokesman said at the briefing.
The project is part of Pakistan’s efforts to position itself as a key trade and transit hub, connecting the landlocked Central Asian states to the global market.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Foreign Office Spokesman Shafqat Ali Khan said on Thursday the country’s armed forces were “fully prepared” to defend its sovereignty as troops from Pakistan and India exchanged fire overnight across the Line of Control in disputed Kashmir.
Relations have plunged to their lowest level in years, with India accusing Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after gunmen carried out the worst attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir for a quarter of a century. Pakistan has rejected India’s accusations as being “devoid of rationality,” saying they were made without any “credible investigation” or “verifiable evidence.”
Both nations have since announced tit-for-tat measures, including closing the only open land border they share, and suspending special South Asian visas that enabled people to travel between them. They have declared each other’s defense advisers in missions in New Delhi and Islamabad persona non grata and reduced the strength of their embassies.
India has also suspended a critical treaty that regulated the sharing of water from the Indus River and its tributaries, with Pakistan warning that any attempt to stop or divert its water would be considered an act of war and met with “full force.” Pakistan has paused all bilateral agreements, suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country and closed its airspace to all Indian-owned and Indian-operated airlines.

“The National Security Committee underscored that Pakistan, its armed forces, remain fully capable and prepared to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity against any misadventure,” the foreign office spokesman told a weekly news briefing, referring to Thursday’s meeting of top Pakistani military and civilian officials to finalize Islamabad’s response to India’s accusations and escalatory actions. 
“The Pakistani nation remains committed to peace, but will never allow anyone to transgress its sovereignty, security, dignity and their inalienable rights.”

There is growing concern since Tuesday’s attack that India could conduct a military strike in Pakistani territory as it did in 2019 in retaliation for a suicide bombing in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir in which at least 40 Indian paramilitary police were killed. Pakistan had denied official complicity in that assault. Several leaders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have also variously called for military action against Pakistan this week. 
Speaking to an international media outlet on Thursday evening, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said Islamabad would respond “in kind and with full force” to any Indian incursion on the pretext of Tuesday’s militant attack.

Meanwhile, Syed Ashfaq Gilani, a government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir known as Azad Kashmir, told AFP Friday that troops exchanged fire along the Line of Control (LOC), which runs 742km (460 miles), dividing Indian- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and acts as part of the de facto border between the two countries. The military frontline, which runs through inhospitable terrain, has separated hundreds of families and even divided villages and mountains.
“There was no firing on the civilian population,” Gilani added.
India’s army confirmed there had been limited firing of small arms that it said had been “initiated by Pakistan,” adding it had been “effectively responded to.”

India’s army chief is expected to review security arrangements on Friday and visit the site in the Pahalgam area of Tuesday’s attack, Reuters reported on Friday, quoting army sources. 
The two countries both claim Muslim-majority Kashmir in full but rule it in part. India, a Hindu majority nation, has long accused Muslim-majority Pakistan of aiding separatists who have battled security forces in its part of the territory — accusations Islamabad denies.