HANGU: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to continue talks, sources said Monday, a day after the Kurram border skirmishes in which a soldier of the Pakistan Army lost his life and nine others were injured.
A team comprising Kohat Division Commissioner Mahmood Aslam, Kurram Deputy Commissioner Wisal Khan Khattak, Brigadier Shahzad Azim and other forces leaders along with the jirga started negotiations with Afghanistan authorities on Monday. The negotiations started after the ceasefire on the border.
“Eight casualties – out of which two were civilians and eight army men – were brought to the hospital,” Parachinar District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Medical Superintendent Dr Mir Hasan Jan told Aaj News. “One of the army men was already dead when he was brought to the hospital.”
Dr Hasan added that the rest of the patients were in stable condition and shifted to the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar.
Initial media reports said that seven people were injured after firing from across the Afghan border in Kharlachi and Borki near Kurram border on Sunday.
The military and the Foreign Office are yet to comment on the situation.
The Afghan Taliban started firing when the Tori Bangash tribe, living on the border with Afghanistan, tried to stop them from doing construction work on the “disputed land”, sources said.
The tribe said that 1,100 jirab of their land (one jirab is equal to four kanals so 1,100 jirab equals to 4,400 kanal or 550 acres) is on the Afghanistan side where the Taliban were doing construction work.
Local leaders said that tensions started on Saturday over the “illegal constructions” in which Pakistani forces responded to the firing from across the border.
Sajid Hussain Turi, the federal minister for overseas Pakistanis, condemned the unprovoked aggression in Kharlachi and Borki areas. He also condemned the targeting of the civilian population in the said areas.
“The people of Kurram and the Pakistan Army know how to protect their land and a befitting response would be given to any foreign aggression,” he said in a statement shared on Twitter.
Turi added that aggression and war were not the solutions to any problem and Pakistan “had always tried” to resolve all problems with other neighboring countries through dialogue.
Afghanistan is a brotherly neighboring country and Pakistan wants all outstanding issues to be resolved through diplomatic channels and dialogue, it continued.
The federal minister called for resolving the land disputes through bilateral jirga and diplomatic sources so that such incidents were avoided in the future.
“We have held jirga and negotiations with the Afghan government on the land disputes in the past and there is further need for it. And the people across the border should not make attempts to seize Pakistani lands belonging to Khalarchi and Borki,” Turi said.
