Afghanistan to reopen key border crossing with Pakistan on Thursday

By Aamir Latif

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AA) - Afghanistan will reopen a key border crossing with neighboring Pakistan for all kinds of movement on Thursday.

In a statement, Afghanistan’s Information Ministry said that the Torkham border, which connects Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with the neighboring country's eastern Nangarhar province, will be reopened for trade, transit and pedestrian movement from Feb. 23.

The Afghan Embassy in Islamabad, in a Twitter post, also confirmed the development, which came hours after a meeting between Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif with Afghanistan's acting Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and acting Defense Minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob in Kabul on Wednesday.

Kabul had unilaterally shut down the crossing on Sunday. The closure followed an exchange of fire between the two border forces on Monday.

Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan share 18 crossing points, with the busiest ones being the Torkham and southwestern Chaman border posts.

Clashes between the two border troops have long been taking place, and there is no lull even after the re-capture of Afghanistan by the Taliban in August 2021.

In December last year, at least six Pakistani civilians were killed in an exchange of heavy firing along the Chaman border, which connects Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province with Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province.

Apart from trade activities, thousands of people, mainly Afghans, daily cross into the two bordering areas for medical and labor purposes.

The two neighbors share a porous border of almost 2,670 kilometers (1,640 miles).