PESHAWAR: The chief minister of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Ali Amin Gandapur, on Saturday opposed any military operation in the region and instead called for dialogue with Afghanistan, as he addressed a rally demanding the release of his party’s jailed founder Imran Khan.
KP shares a long and porous border with Afghanistan, with strong cultural and linguistic ties to Pashtun populations across the frontier. The province has seen a surge in militant violence in recent years, with Islamabad accusing groups based in Afghanistan of cross-border attacks — allegations the Taliban government in Kabul denies.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan soured in 2023 when Islamabad cracked down on undocumented migrants, most of them Afghans, after a wave of deadly suicide bombings and militant assaults in which officials said Afghan nationals were involved, though no evidence was shared publicly.
While the federal government and military have taken a hard line on Kabul, the KP administration has signaled it favors engagement with the Afghan Taliban.
“We do not want and will not allow any operation in our province,” Gandapur told the rally. “The federal government and [state] institutions must listen: we want talks. Our leader Imran Khan has [also] spoken about peace talks. Talk to Afghanistan today and solve the problem.”
The KP chief minister, who addressed thousands of supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in Peshawar, insisted war was not an option.
“We will raise our voice against it,” he said.
Responding to Gandapur’s remarks, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coordinator on KP affairs, Ikhtiar Wali Khan, dismissed them as a political attempt to stir public sentiment.
“There is no military operation happening in any part of the province,” he told Arab News over the phone. “Only kinetic and precise intelligence-based operations are taking place in the volatile regions of the province. No displacement and relocation have been occurring, but the militants are being targeted precisely.”
He questioned the provincial government’s stance over how to deal with militancy, asking: “If the federal government and the army don’t take action against the militants in the region, will PTI and Ali Amin Gandpur ensure and take responsibility for peace in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa?”
Militancy has surged in KP since the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ended a fragile truce with the state in November 2022, stepping up attacks on security forces.
Pakistan’s military has since intensified intelligence-based operations in the region, especially in the restive tribal districts along the Afghan frontier.
