Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to a temporary pause in hostilities during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr this week, officials said, following weeks of cross-border tensions.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday that the pause, set to run from midnight on Thursday (19:00 GMT, Wednesday) until midnight on Tuesday (19:00 GMT, Monday), had been requested by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Türkiye.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said both sides would make “sincere efforts” through dialogue to find a “positive solution” to what it described as a complex but resolvable issue.
Shortly after the announcement, a spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Taliban government said it would temporarily suspend military operations against Pakistan during the Eid period.
In a statement posted on X, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said the decision to suspend what he described as “Defensive Operations (Rad-ul Zulm)” was taken in response to requests from “brotherly intermediary Islamic countries,” including Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Qatar.
He said the government appreciated the “goodwill and constructive efforts” of those countries, while adding that safeguarding Afghanistan’s national security and sovereignty remained a priority and that any threat would be met with a response.
The pause comes days after Afghanistan accused the Pakistani military of carrying out an air strike on a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul, which it said resulted in significant casualties.