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 of strategic mistrust, inconsistent policies, mutual interference and domestic governance failures on both sides. A broad area of convergence nevertheless emerged: geography makes disengagement impossible, prolonged closure carries significant economic and humanitarian costs, and a workable relationship requires security measures to operate alongside diplomacy, regulated trade, regional engagement and sustained contact between the two societies.