ISLAMABAD, October 15. /TASS/. Islamabad and Kabul have reached a temporary agreement on a 48-hour ceasefire, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"A temporary ceasefire has been declared between the Pakistani government and the Afghan Taliban regime, with the mutual consent of both parties, for the next 48 hours," reads the statement, cited by the Dawn newspaper.
The ceasefire took effect at 1:00 p.m. GMT. In the next two days, "both sides will make sincere efforts to find a positive solution to this complex but solvable issue through constructive dialogue," the statement adds.
Armed clashes on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan resumed on Wednesday morning. According to PTV, the Pakistani army carried out a strike on terrorist positions in Afghanistan in response to an attack on checkpoints in the Kurram District of the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Taliban Deputy Spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said that 12 people had been killed and over 100 had suffered injuries. According to him, "early in the morning, Pakistani troops resumed attacks on Afghanistan" and "Afghan forces had to retaliate."
Shootouts took place in Afghanistan’s Helmand province on October 11. Later, the Afghan Air Force conducted a strike on the Pakistani city of Lahore. Taliban officials did not provide any details of the operation. Afghanistan’s TOLO News TV channel claimed that the clashes killed at least 58 Pakistani service members. Islamabad, in turn, said that at least 200 militants had been eliminated, 19 terrorist facilities had been destroyed in Afghanistan, from which shelling attacks had been carried out, and the headquarters of an Afghan tank battalion providing support to extremists involved in an attack on Pakistan had also been targeted.