Mohsin Naqvi’s one-day visit to Kabul on July 20, 2025, clearly expressed a message that Pakistan is going to double down on diplomacy to eliminate cross-border sanctuaries of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). During the high-level meetings with the acting Interior Minister of Afghanistan, Sirajuddin Haqqani, and Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Nabi Omari, Naqvi stressed the need for Joint Coordination against terrorism, seeking implementation of border security and checks on illegal crossings across the 2,600-kilometre-long Durand Line.
Naqvi’s visit signals Pakistan’s renewed diplomatic effort to eliminate TTP sanctuaries across the Durand Line.
Much more ominous, though, behind the optics, the reality is that the armed forces of Pakistan have struggled to contain a growing spiral of TTP strikes even as they launch counter-strikes and secure borders with fencing, posing questions on whether meager diplomacy can ever pay diversionary dividends on real security.
The objective is easy to understand: persuade the Afghan Taliban to act to suppress TTP leaders and sanctuaries. Naqvi in Kabul is reported to have called for the two countries “to coordinate to contain terrorism and tighten their borders” with an emphasis that “terrorist groups are creating havoc and instability,” and we must crack down on them. Pakistan also looks for assurance, and the Afghan Taliban are being pressed to compel the TTP leaders to bow to political orders that will curb cross‑border attacks.
However, the problem is deeply rooted. After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan back in 2021, the TTP militants have been using the country with relative impunity. In the mid of 2024, a United Nations Security Council estimate put the number of TTP fighters in Afghanistan at least 6,000. Since then, the group has increased its operations: more than 2,500 deaths in Pakistan in 2024 – 66 percent year‑on‑year, at least 54 militants killed entering from Afghanistan in April 2025.
Domestically, that was acclaimed as a huge pre-emptive victory. In June, a vehicle‑borne suicide attack in North Waziristan killed 16 soldiers. This is an alarming trend: diplomatic promises without immediate action on the ground will have a hard time limiting the dynamic threat of the insurgents.
Pakistan has reacted accordingly by force. In April 2025, security agents repelled mass attacks of militants who tried to infiltrate the country cross-border and killed around 71, in addition to retrieving weapon dumps. However, military measures, air operations, fencing and violent crackdowns have not been sufficient. In January 2025, IISS analysts noted that the TTP, with Afghan sanctuaries, was still able to launch the deadliest attacks on Pakistani military and civilian targets. Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, initiated in June 2024, was a tactical success because hundreds of militants were killed, but not sustainable strategic security as Afghanistan once again turned into a haven.
This places Pakistan at a point of strategic inflection. The mission of Naqvi was a recent development of the series of diplomacy-first initiatives. It came days after a visit to Kabul by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar as part of a three-way reset of relations, including China. Such arrangements would achieve a complete Ambassador‑level Restoration of Diplomacy, an Enhancement of the Invitation of Afghanistan to Join CPEC, as well as a Taliban Promise to Crack Down on the TTP Cross-Border Activities. China intervened to act as a guarantor of promises in Beijing, as on the side of Taliban cooperation, there is the economic need of Afghanistan and Pakistani stability, which Beijing is using as a third party.
Despite military operations, TTP violence continues, showing the limits of force without enforced diplomacy.
This depends on whether it would work by way of enforcement. The policy used by Islamabad is based on three mutually reinforcing foundations: the use of diplomatic pressure, military deterrence, and the future economic prospects of Kabul. Regarding diplomacy, Islamabad has been demanding periodic visits and meetings, raising the issue of a common management of borders, drug-trafficking repression, and refugee repatriation.
With regard to deterrence, ongoing military action continues to ratchet up, including in the North Waziristan offensives and cases of strikes as reported by ISPR. Regarding incentives, Kabul has economic carrots in the form of CPEC openings and the possibility of trade expansion in case of cooperation on its part.
Nevertheless, there are still rifts. Afghan Taliban, although sharing much common ideology with the TTP, are hardly free of pressures as well as threats of IS-Khorasan, sanctions, and the necessity to prevent internal divisions. They can be opposed to Pakistani demands to weaken their allies in Afghanistan. Strategic blowback has been developed due to the expectations of the past of Pakistan.
At the beginning of the year, Islamabad had miscalculated, believing that the Taliban would bring a rogue organization within its ideological fold; but the result was violence peaking to a level in nine years the making, and thousands of people lost their lives. According to the army chief of Pakistan, Gen. Asim Munir, he appealed to the Taliban directly to demolish the TTP safe havens, but recently admitted that nothing has been given a shot except goodwill. Islamabad has gone a step further, repatriating more than 800,000 Afghanistan refugees as well.
Closing the border pass points as a way of enhancing pressure. The visit made by Naqvi in this regard is not symbolic or sufficient: instead, it is tactical. It is a witness to the fact that Pakistan has shifted its strategic operations of independent military defense to the figure of controlled trilateral structure entailing Kabul and Beijing. Using diplomacy may intensify the pressure, exchange intelligence, coordinate activities, and strengthen border procedures. Such involvement in repatriation, drug-trafficking, and fencing of the borders acknowledges a larger agenda to normalize Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, the security dividends will have to be based on defined results, such as whether the TTP leadership figures are being detained or expelled. Is the number of cross‑border infiltrations dropping? Will there be joint or shared border patrolling and centers of shared intelligence? These milestones have to be monitored.
China acts as a guarantor in trilateral diplomacy linking Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Beijing for counterterrorism cooperation.
Pakistan itself has just that, in the form of the National Intelligence Fusion and Threat Assessment Centre (NIFTAC), established May 6, 2025, as part of the interior portfolio of Naqvi, whose creation was marked by the 2025 National Intelligence Fusion and Threat Assessment Centre Act. The success rate of the same, or that of the Afghan counterpart, will be a very important barometer.
After all, the TTP menace is bigger than military pragmatism; it is a geopolitical issue that is based on the politics of sanctuary. TTP will survive until and unless diplomacy is enforced with credible costs and complementary by development incentives. One of these expediencies, a brief trip to Kabul, however well-intentioned, is no replacement for systemic enforcement.
But it does at least turn the page of strategic discussion. Together with Chinese-brokered economic common sense, an excellent form of diplomatic urgency on Pakistan, Afghan political caution, and military alertness, this would be the structure of a long-term counter-terrorism strategy.
The key element of Pakistan’s recalibration policy will be the sense of Kabul experiencing the positive effects of collaboration first-hand, and, on the other hand, the risks of inertia. The visit of Naqvi’s reinstatement is in readiness to cooperate, but it should translate rhetoric into mandate.
The success of border security depends on tangible results like arrests, intelligence sharing, and reduced infiltration.
Only thereby, it becomes possible to make the corridors of Kandahar and Khost less congenial to the terrorists operating in Pakistan. It will be the next actions of the Afghan Taliban and the willingness of these Taliban to publicly reject or imprison TTP leaders that will determine whether diplomacy can ever bring security dividends, or whether hard power and cross-border violence is the preferred rule of engagement in this very old and deadly game.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.
