Pakistan partially reopens Torkham border crossing to allow Afghan refugees to leave

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan on Saturday partially reopened the Torkham border crossing with Afghanistan to allow thousands of stranded Afghan refugees to return home, officials said.

Restrictions remain on all other cross-border movement, including trade.

Pakistan closed all border crossings with Afghanistan on Oct. 12 following deadly clashes in which both sides claimed to have killed dozens of troops.

The closure, which lasted nearly three weeks, left thousands of Afghan refugees stranded along with hundreds of trucks carrying goods, suspending key trade routes between the two countries.

The reopening came after Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to maintain a ceasefire following nearly weeklong negotiations facilitated by Turkey and Qatar aimed at preventing a wider conflict in the region.

Authorities said no new exchange of fire has been reported since the ceasefire along the 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border, known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has never formally recognized.

Thousands of Afghan refugees had been moved to a temporary camp near the border, while hundreds more waited along the roadside for the crossing to reopen. Despite the partial reopening, trade across the frontier remains suspended on both sides.

Local officials at the Afghan side told The Associated Press that the gate was reopened Saturday morning exclusively for Afghan refugees, with thousands expected to cross back into Afghanistan throughout the day.

They urged all other travelers to refrain from using the crossing until further notice.

A video released by the Information and Culture Department of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province showed local officials and Afghan soldiers standing at the Torkham gate holding flowers to welcome returning refugees as they crossed back into their country.

The development came a day after Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan, Ahmad Shakeeb, wrote on X that large numbers of Afghan refugees remained stranded because of Pakistan’s closure of border crossings.

On Friday, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said the Afghan ambassador had violated diplomatic norms by airing his grievances on social media instead of communicating through Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry.

Since 2023, Pakistan has launched a campaign to deport immigrants living illegally in the country. More than a million Afghans have been repatriated as part of the effort.

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s military said it carried out airstrikes on the hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban inside Afghanistan, killing dozens of people it described as insurgents. Afghan officials denied the claim, saying civilians were among the dead, and said Afghan forces had struck Pakistani military posts in retaliation, killing 58 soldiers. Pakistan’s military acknowledged losing 23 troops in the fighting.

The violence prompted Qatar to invite delegations from both sides to Doha, where they agreed to a ceasefire on Oct. 19. It was followed by six days of talks in Istanbul that continued until Thursday night, when the two sides agreed to maintain the truce.

Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks in recent months, most claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. The group, designated a terrorist organization by both the United States and the United Nations, is separate from the Afghan Taliban but has been emboldened by the Afghan group's takeover of Kabul in 2021.