Pakistan, Afghanistan to resolve border fencing issue

New Delhi, Dec 24 Pakistan and the Taliban government have reached an understanding to resolve the issue of border fencing through talks after Taliban soldiers last week tried to disrupt the fencing along the eastern province of Nangarhar, Express Tribune reported.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said a local intelligence chief of the Taliban tried to remove the fence, and it was not a decision approved by the Taliban leadership, the report said.

Soon after the incident, Pakistan and the Taliban established contact at the highest level and agreed to resolve the issue through talks.

"Both sides have reached an understanding not to escalate the situation," the official said, adding that there were some issues of alignments about the border fencing, which the two sides would resolve mutually.

"The Afghan side was requested to coordinate border alignment before fixing the fence," the official said.

Acting Afghan Defence Minister Mullah Yaqub, who is also the son of Taliban co-founder Mullah Muhammad Omar, visited the troubled region and directed local Taliban commanders not to take such measures in the future.

The incident took place a day before Pakistan was to host an extraordinary conference of the foreign ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Afghanistan's humanitarian situation.

The Afghan acting Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, also attended the daylong meeting, which agreed to set up a trust fund to help Afghanistan prevent the humanitarian catastrophe.

A video circulated on social media showed Taliban soldiers had seized spools of barbed wire and one senior official warning Pakistani soldiers stationed in security posts in the distance not to try to fence the border again.

Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazmi said Taliban forces stopped the Pakistani military from erecting an "illegal" border fence along the eastern province of Nangarhar on Sunday, the report said.

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