Fazlur Rehman

RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
January 8, 2024

A senior Pakistani Islamist politician has met top Taliban leaders in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, in an attempt to revive ties between the two neighbors.

The January 8 meeting involving Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e Islam Pakistan (JUI) political party, hoped to improve ties marred by a violent campaign by the Pakistani Taliban allied with the Afghan Taliban and the ongoing forced expulsion of more than 1 million Afghans by Islamabad.

Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the Taliban-led government’s prime minister, reiterated that officials want smooth relations — strained due to the forced expulsion of Afghan refugees from Pakistan — with the country’s neighbors.

Islamabad has accused the Taliban government of giving shelter to militants of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, or other groups. Kabul denies the accusations.

“We will not allow anyone to [create problems] from our territory,” he was quoted as saying by a Taliban statement after the meeting.

In recent months, Pakistan has taken steps to expel 1.7 million undocumented Afghans as part of a policy announced in October to repatriate “illegal foreigners” living on its soil.

The situation has led to chaotic scenes at some border crossings as returnees are funneled back into Afghanistan, where international aid groups are already struggling to provide humanitarian assistance to millions of people displaced by insecurity and a recent spate of earthquakes and perennial drought.

Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s foreign minister, highlighted the plight of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and the losses Afghan traders endure because of frequent border closures and stranded imports in Pakistani ports.

“The trade and economic exchange between the two countries should not be sacrificed for political ends,” he was quoted as saying in the Taliban statement.

Rehman agreed with the Taliban’s complaints about the mistreatment of Afghans in Pakistan.

“We see this kind of attitude as a cause of the current problems between the two countries,” he said in a statement issued by the JUI. “My visit aims to remove the misunderstanding between the two countries.”

Rehman is visiting Kabul after the Taliban invited him last month.

Before leaving on the trip, Rehman told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal that it was endorsed by Islamabad, where senior government officials briefed him on the current state of relations with the Taliban government.

He said that he would also meet the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who rarely meets foreign diplomats and political leaders.

“We will use our relations with the Taliban for the benefit of both countries,” he said.

Rehman’s JUI has had close relations with the Taliban since its emergence in southern Afghanistan nearly three decades ago. Many Taliban leaders were educated in madrasahs run by former lawmakers and other JUI leaders.

But it is unclear how far his visit will go to quell tensions between Islamabad and Kabul.

For more than a year, the longtime allies have fallen out over the Taliban’s alleged support for the TTP. Islamabad blames the group for the rising attacks that have killed more than 2,000 people since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.

Underscoring the challenges ahead, the TTP claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a police vehicle on January 8.

At least five police officers were killed and 22 injured in an attack in the district of Bajaur on the Afghan border in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

The police were guarding a polio-vaccination team.

Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.