Torkham | Pakistan

After nearly 50 days of closure, Pakistan has partially reopened the Torkham and Chaman border crossings with Afghanistan to allow United Nations humanitarian cargoes.

Officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan said on Saturday that the Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been reopened for Afghan refugees returning to their country. Speaking to Dawn, Khyber Deputy Commissioner Bilal Rao confirmed that the Torkham border crossing had been reopened earlier today for the resumption of Afghan refugees’ repatriation. Khizer Shah, the spokesman of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul, and Afghan officials also confirmed the development. “Torkham gate is now open for refugees. We welcome our countrymen,” Qureshi Badloon, head of the Information and Culture in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, told Dawn. The repatriation of Afghan families with or without any travel or identity documents was abruptly suspended on October 11 following border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which continued for days before a ceasefire was formalised in Doha on October 19. Pakistan had closed all its borders with Afghanistan for all types of movement. Since then, a large number of return...

KHYBER - The unstable relations due to the tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Pak-Afghan border has severely affected the bilateral trade at Torkham border.

Amid renewed firing and escalating tensions between Pakistani and Afghan forces, the Torkham and Chaman border crossings have been closed for trade and pedestrian movement from both sides, officials confirmed on Sunday.