{"id":44777,"date":"2026-04-08T13:04:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T13:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=44777"},"modified":"2026-04-08T13:04:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T13:04:02","slug":"afghanistan-pakistan-agree-to-avoid-escalation-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=44777","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan, Pakistan agree to avoid escalation: China"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>BEIJING: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to avoid any escalation in their armed conflict, during <a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/asia\/pakistan-says-it-holding-talks-afghan-government-in-china-6030706\">talks hosted by China<\/a> in recent days, Beijing said on Wednesday (Apr 8).<\/p>\n<p>The neighbours and one-time allies have been locked in violent confrontation over claims from Islamabad that Afghanistan is harbouring militants responsible for cross-border attacks, which the Taliban government denies.<\/p>\n<p>Hostilities escalated sharply at the end of February, when Pakistani airstrikes were followed by an Afghan ground offensive, with Islamabad declaring an &#8220;open war&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>On Mar 16, a Pakistani strike on a hospital in Kabul <a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/asia\/afghanistan-pakistan-air-strike-hospital-5997821\">killed hundreds of civilians<\/a>, sparking international condemnation and renewing calls for talks on ending the conflict.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Representatives from China, Afghanistan and Pakistan held a week of informal meetings in Urumqi, Xinjiang, from Apr 1 to 7,&#8221; Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The three delegations &#8220;engaged in frank and pragmatic discussions in a positive atmosphere&#8221;, she said at a regular news conference in Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>According to the spokeswoman, Afghanistan and Pakistan stated &#8220;their commitment to resolving their differences as soon as possible and realising a return to normalcy in bilateral relations, agreeing not to take any actions that would escalate or complicate the situation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Diplomats from Pakistan and Afghanistan had already reported the China-hosted talks last week, but Beijing had not confirmed them.<\/p>\n<p>A truce implemented during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, concluded on Mar 24.<\/p>\n<p>The land border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been almost completely closed during the fighting, resulting in significant economic consequences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/asia\/afghanistan-pakistan-agree-avoid-escalation-talks-china-6044016\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIJING: Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to avoid any escalation in their armed conflict, during talks hosted by China in recent days, Beijing said on Wednesday&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}