Towards Pragmatic Policy Pathways in a Shifting Regional Order POLICY ROUNDTABLE REPORT Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) Islamabad, Pakistan Compiled by Imtiaz Gul and Elsa Chandio ABOUT THIS REPORT  This report synthesises the interventions made at a high-level CRSS roundtable on June 30, 2026, comprising economists, development experts, former diplomats and envoys, and regional experts. Introduction As the Taliban complete five years in power in August 2026, Pakistan–Afghanistan relations are effectively frozen. What began in 2021 with expectations in Islamabad of a more cooperative relationship with Kabul has instead given way to a prolonged security and political impasse. The border has remained largely closed since October 2025, amid Pakistan’s conviction that the Afghan Taliban regime hosts and shelters the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which uses Afghan territory to plan, support and launch attacks against Pakistani civilians and security personnel. Against this backdrop of prolonged border closure, worsening security tensions and a deepening political impasse, the Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) convened the roundtable, “Pakistan–Afghanistan Relations: What Next? Towards Pragmatic Policy Pathways in a Shifting Regional Order.” The roundtable was organised around a difficult policy question: how can Pakistan respond to the threat posed by the TTP without allowing one security dispute to consume the entire relationship with Afghanistan, and is prolonged border closure economically and politically viable in the long run? Participants examined cross-border militancy, the widening trust deficit, trade and transit, border management, people-to-people ties, humanitarian movement and the changing regional environment around Afghanistan. There was no complete agreement on the roots of the crisis. Some speakers regarded the TTP as the central obstacle to normal relations, while others viewed it as part of a longer history...

By Elsa Chandio As the Taliban complete five years in power, UK Special Envoy Richard Lindsay has reflected in an X thread on why Britain continues to engage with Afghanistan and what that engagement has involved during his first year in the role. Five years after the Taliban returned to power, Afghanistan’s de facto government remains largely unrecognised internationally but is far from disengaged. Britain, like many other governments, has maintained cautious engagement through direct talks in Kabul, humanitarian assistance, support for the UN-led political process, and dialogue with Afghan communities. Marking his first year as UK Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Lindsay explained why this engagement continues: “Afghanistan’s future matters – to Afghans first and foremost, of course, but also to the region and to the UK.” During his visits to Kabul, Lindsay has engaged directly with the Taliban on Britain’s main priorities, including counter-terrorism commitments, regional security threats, and the rights of women and girls. While the UK considers dialogue necessary, he has stressed that it “must be matched by action”, particularly in preventing Afghan territory from being used by terrorist groups and upholding human rights. Keeping this channel open does not mean formally recognising the Taliban or accepting their policies; it acknowledges that Afghanistan’s political and security problems cannot be addressed without some form of direct communication. Lindsay’s account of his first year extends beyond meetings with Taliban officials. During his visits, he met Afghan artisans, entrepreneurs, radio presenters, and civil society figures, gaining a closer view of how ordinary Afghans are dealing with economic hardship, political isolation, and restrictions on public life. Their ability to continue working, running businesses, and supporting their communities remains important to Afghanistan’s future. His meetings in London have provided another channel for...

By Engineer Muhammad Darjat As floods, glacial melt, landslides, and cloudbursts increasingly damage irrigation systems and other essential infrastructure across Gilgit-Baltistan, cement-heavy construction is proving costly and difficult to sustain. Muhammad Darjat makes the case for combining indigenous knowledge, participatory planning, and nature-based engineering to build infrastructure that mountain communities can afford, maintain, and adapt to a changing climate. In high-altitude mountainous watersheds across Northern Pakistan, productive physical and social infrastructure—specifically community irrigation facilities, drinking water systems and other common facilities including small bridges, pathways, village and valley roads, —serves as the core precondition for socioeconomic development. Escalating climate volatility, rapid glacier melting, abnormal cloudbursts, and intensified monsoons have drastically increased the size, frequency and scale of vulnerabilities to soil erosion, debris and mudflows, mass landsliding and floods resulting in loss and damage of crops farmland and other utilities including off-grid hydropower stations. This article discusses the current practices in planning, construction and management of irrigation systems in the high lands. In the mountains people have been using indigenous techniques and local materials in construction and operation of these common facilities. But more recent trends show that development interventions are focused heavily on rigid, conventional "grey" infrastructure, means use of concrete, which has a high cost and is difficult to repair and maintain when it breaks; especially due to floods and mudflows or landsliding. At the micro-level in the mountains the grey structures, when subjected to thermal expansion, soil creep, seismic motion, or riverbank undercutting, these irrigation facilities crack, break, collapse, and fail completely. The recurrent loss and damage of these physical assets due to climate...

By Muhammad Darjat As fertile lands disappear under floods and erosion, community-led restoration offers a practical blueprint for climate resilience in Pakistan's mountain regions. Across the high-altitude valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan, a tangible crisis is radically reshaping the physical and built environment. Driven by escalating global temperatures, accelerated snow and glacier melt have turned essential seasonal lifelines into instruments of destruction. Fertile agricultural lands cultivated for generations are being systematically buried under rocky debris, eroded by shifting riverbeds, or drowned by sudden flash floods. The scars of this changing climate are increasingly visible across the mountainous region. In the Saling and Balghar area of Ghanche district and Hoto village in Skardu and the main Shigar Valley in Baltistan,the shifting, swelling waters of the Shyok , Balardu Rivers and their cumulative flow have eaten away vital farmland including agroforestry plots and apricot orchards. Meanwhile, in the villages of Dain and Pakora locality in Ishkomen Valley in Ghezir district, the intense summer heatwaves provoke sudden mudflows and debris torrents, transforming lush fruit orchards into rocky deserts. The rehabilitation work of 2025 floods in Thank in Diamer, Talidas Raoshan Gupis,and village Dain in Ishkoman are yet to be completed and the new destruction in Molaabad in Gupis and settlements in Ghanche district has started in the first week of July 2026. Further north in the village of Passu,in Hunza district aggressive lateral bank erosion and damage to farmland for decades and the turbulent flow by glacial runoff threatens the very foundations of agrarian livelihoods. Elders say that this old village used to be the settlement of 300 households and the land erosion incrementally forced people to migrate to other villages and locations within and outside Pakistan. A perennial Glacier Outburst event in the village of Hassanabad in Hunza and Hopper in...

More than 10,000 Afghans a day have been crossing into Afghanistan since Islamabad’s July 10 deadline. The UN warns that fear of arrest is driving people out, blurring the line between voluntary return and forced deportation. Days before Pakistan’s latest deadline for Afghans expired, a holding centre at a government college in Rawalpindi was fortified with barbed wire, CCTV cameras and searchlights. Fifty-five police officers were assigned to guard it in three shifts, alongside Elite Force commandos. Afghans brought to the centre were required to surrender their mobile phones at a verification desk until their deportation. The arrangements offered an early picture of what would follow July 10, the date after which Pakistan’s Interior Ministry ordered the immediate arrest of any Afghan national found in the country without a valid visa. The crackdown is now under way. On July 12, police detained 47 Afghans in Charsadda district and three more in neighbouring Mohmand. The detainees were transferred to holding facilities for verification before deportation through the Torkham border. Authorities in Punjab say 36 holding centres are operating across the province. Dawn reported the first arrests under the renewed operation. At the border, the scale of the movement is even more visible. Officials at the Hamza Baba transit point in Landi Kotal said more than 10,000 Afghans had been returning each day, nearly three times the rate recorded in May and June. In Kohat, state media reported that more than 12,200 families had left refugee camps through a phased return programme. A return driven by fear Pakistan describes the campaign as the enforcement of its immigration laws. The Interior Ministry’s directive applies to Afghans without valid visas, including those whose visas have expired, and requires authorities to submit daily reports on arrests and subsequent action. Islamabad argues that a sovereign state cannot indefinitely permit foreign nationals to remain without...

No country in recent history has achieved the scale of economic, technological and social transformation witnessed in China. Over the past four decades, China has emerged from a developing economy into a global leader in technology, innovation, education, infrastructure and human development. Today, China is not only leading the region economically but is also shaping global trends in trade, manufacturing, technology and investment. What makes China’s development journey remarkable is not merely the scale of its achievements but the consistency of its vision. The country has demonstrated how long-term planning, policy continuity and investment in people can produce extraordinary results. Across the nation, there is a clear focus on development, modernization and improving the quality of life of ordinary citizens. China’s rise as a technological powerhouse is particularly impressive. From artificial intelligence and smart manufacturing to electric vehicles, high-speed rail and digital payment systems, China has positioned itself at the forefront of innovation. Chinese companies are increasingly setting global standards in advanced technology and industrial production. The country’s commitment to research and development has enabled it to compete with the world’s leading economies in sectors that will define the future. An important factor behind this remarkable transformation has been the continuity of leadership and long-term vision. Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has continued to pursue modernization, technological innovation, poverty alleviation and high-quality development with determination and consistency. His emphasis on long-term planning, human capital development, innovation and shared prosperity has helped China strengthen its position as a leading economic and technological power. During recent visits to Wuhan, Xiangyang and Beijing, the practical results of these policies were visible everywhere. Modern industrial facilities, smart...

Engineer Arshad H Abbasi and Imtiaz Gul Born from one of the world's most successful examples of international water diplomacy, the Indus Waters Treaty enabled the construction of the infrastructure that powered Pakistan's economic rise. As debates over the treaty intensify, this article explores both the extraordinary achievements of the Indus Basin Project and the costly erosion of the vision that once transformed Pakistan's future. In 1951, Eugene Robert Black, President of the World Bank, looked at the newly partitioned subcontinent and saw not a territorial dispute but an engineering problem — and an opportunity. The Indus River system, the lifeblood of South Asia's most productive agricultural plain, had been severed at Partition like a vital artery. India controlled the headworks. Pakistan depended on the flows. The standoff was inching toward war. Inspired by a bold proposal from American engineer David Lilienthal — the architect of the Tennessee Valley Authority — Black mediated across nine painstaking years of diplomacy. The result was the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. It remains, to this day, the most durable water-sharing agreement in human history — surviving three wars, nuclear standoffs, and sixty-five years of enmity. What followed was not merely a legal settlement. It was the economic birth of modern Pakistan. Under the Indus Basin Development Fund Agreement, an international coalition mobilized USD 566 million in external funding: the United States contributing USD 247 million, Germany USD 126 million as an outright grant, the World Bank an USD 80 million loan, Canada USD 22.1 million, the United Kingdom USD 20.86 million, Australia USD 6.97 million, New Zealand USD 1 million — and India USD 62.06 million. The World Bank did not write a check and walk away. It supervised the design and execution of one of the most complex hydraulic programs in history: two storage dams, six barrages, eight inter-river link canals, drainage networks, roads, and...