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Pakistan and Afghanistan held a first round of ceasefire talks in northern China on Wednesday, with Chinese officials mediating efforts to end weeks of fighting, according to Pakistani officials and an Afghan official. The talks took place in Urumqi, and the officials who briefed The Associated Press said they expected another round on Thursday.
Even as the delegations met, Afghanistan accused Pakistan of shelling its territory late Wednesday. Farid Dehqan, a police spokesman for Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan, said Pakistan fired mortars into Afghan territory two hours after the shelling began and that the attack killed two civilians and wounded six others, including four children. Pakistan’s army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The AP reported that representatives from both countries were meeting in Urumqi after both sides accepted China’s offer to mediate, with the first round concluding Wednesday afternoon. The officials said the talks were expected to continue Thursday and that they spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
China had not commented on the talks, and Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs neither confirmed nor denied that the negotiations were taking place. An Afghan official who provided details about the delegation also spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, saying the Afghan team consisted of five members, including two from the foreign ministry and one each from the defense and interior ministries and from the country’s intelligence agency.
The officials portrayed the talks as a potential source of relief for millions affected by the recent violence, and they described the meeting in China as an initial step in a broader peace process. They said the negotiations may last for days, but that they also represent only the beginning of longer talks between the two sides.
Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s former special envoy for Afghanistan, said that if the talks led to an agreement, “the critical issue will be a verification mechanism” to ensure that Afghan territory would not be used for attacks against Pakistan. His comment underscored one of the persistent disagreements between the countries, with Pakistan accusing Afghanistan of allowing militants to carry out attacks from safe havens across the border.
Pakistan has accused Afghanistan—governed by the Afghan Taliban since 2021—of providing space for militants who conduct attacks inside Pakistan, including elements associated with the Pakistani Taliban. Kabul has denied the charge. The two sides have also traded allegations over earlier incidents, including Afghanistan’s claim that a Pakistani airstrike last month hit a drug-treatment center in Kabul and killed more than 400 people; Pakistan disputed that account and said it struck an ammunition depot.
The violence between Afghanistan and Pakistan intensified after February, with Pakistan declaring it was in “open war” with Afghanistan and carrying out repeated cross-border clashes and airstrikes inside Afghanistan, including in Kabul. The fighting also followed a temporary truce during Eid al-Fitr that did not stop the fighting permanently, and it came as an October ceasefire mediated by Qatar failed to end earlier clashes, according to the AP report.
The international community has raised concerns that militant groups including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group remain active in the region and could seek to regroup amid instability between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The AP also reported that previous peace talks held in Istanbul in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and that another round of talks held in Saudi Arabia remained inconclusive.
It was not immediately clear, according to the AP report, who was representing Pakistan and Afghanistan in the China talks.