Saudi Arabia quietly facilitated a round of direct talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan aimed at easing tensions over cross-border terrorism, but the discussions wrapped up late on Sunday without any breakthrough, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
The closed-door session in Riyadh ended with both sides holding firm to their longstanding positions and showing little willingness to compromise, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were not publicly acknowledged. The sources added that another Saudi-hosted round remains possible in the near future.
The Riyadh engagement, which took place as a separate track co-mediated by Türkiye and Qatar remains stalled. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had earlier announced plans to dispatch a delegation to Pakistan, but the visit has yet to materialise.
The Türkiye-Qatar initiative produced a fragile ceasefire after clashes in early October, though Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said at a weekly briefing on Friday that the truce had faltered because it hinged on a halt to terrorist activities. The delegations in Riyadh were largely the same teams that participated in previous rounds in Istanbul, the sources noted, saying, for instance Pakistani delegation included a diplomat from the Foreign Office.
During the talks, Saudi officials suggested that Pakistan consider allowing the resumption of bilateral trade while discussions on cross-border terrorism continue, but Islamabad declined the proposal, the sources said.
Pakistan’s bilateral relations with Afghanistan have come under strain in recent times as the banned terrorist TTP group remains the main point of contention between the two countries.
Pakistan has demanded that the rulers in Kabul take action to stop cross-border terrorism, but the Afghan Taliban deny Islamabad’s allegations of terrorists being allowed to use Afghan soil to carry out attacks in Pakistan. Following the failure of the talks, the Afghan Taliban suspended trade ties with Islamabad. Pakistan had already closed its border for trade soon after the October clashes.