Torkham border crossing between Afghanistan, Pakistan closed
Torkham, the main border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been closed with residents of the area reporting hearing gunfire near the normally bustling border transit point.
It was not immediately clear whether Afghan or Pakistani authorities closed the Torkham border crossing, near the Khyber Pass, but Monday’s move comes after relations between Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban and Pakistan deteriorated sharply.
Mullah Mohammad Siddiq, a Taliban-appointed commissioner at Torkham, said Pakistan has not been abiding by its “commitments … so the crossing point was shut down”, The Associated Press reported.
Siddiq advised Afghans to avoid travelling to the crossing, located on Afghanistan’s side in the country’s eastern Nangarhar province, until further notice.
Khalid Khan, a Pakistani police official, confirmed the border closure and what he described as intermittent exchanges of fire at Torkham, located in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Disputes linked to the 2,600km (1,615 miles) border have been a bone of contention between the neighbours for decades. The Torkham border point is the main point of transit for travellers and goods between Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan.
Border clashes
Mohammad Ali Shinwari, a resident of Landi Kotal on the Pakistani side, said the border was closed late on Sunday and gunfire erupted early on Monday, Reuters news agency reported.
“When we heard gunshots in the morning, we got worried and believed that troops of the two countries might have started fighting,” he said.
Clashes on the border have occurred for years, during the two-decade rule of Afghanistan’s US-backed government and since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021.
Clashes between Afghan and Pakistani security forces have also at times closed the second most important crossing between the two countries.
