Afghans skip flag meeting

LANDI KOTAL:

Afghan officials did not participate in Tuesday's scheduled flag meeting which many hoped would pacify the situation after Monday night skirmishes between security forces along the Torkham border.

It was hoped that normal border activity could resume if both sides managed to ease tensions.

All activities remained suspended after the skirmishes, with reports emerging of three casualties.

The conflict emerged after Afghanistan started the construction of roads next to the Pakistan border.

However, Pakistani officials demanded that their counterparts halt the activity, giving rise to the tensions at Torkham.

The flag meeting was scheduled for Tuesday at 6pm, but Afghan authorities chose to remain absent and did not inform Pakistani authorities.

Sources added that Pakistan resumed activities along the border until the end of the day, but suspended trade after the Afghan side failed to show up for the flag meeting.

The sources confirmed that until the flag meeting resolves matters, trade and border activities would remain suspended.

Reuters, quoting an Afghan Taliban administration spokesman, reported that three Afghan civilians were killed in the clashes.

The clashes took place late on Monday near the southwestern border crossing of Torkham after Pakistani border forces opened fire on Afghan border forces, said Mufti Abdul Mateen, the spokesman for Afghanistan's interior ministry.

"The Pakistani forces targeted civilian homes, killing a woman and two children," he said. Pakistan's military did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for a comment.

Three Pakistani paramilitary troops were wounded in the fighting, said a security official who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Clashes often break out between the neighbouring security forces along the border, which was drawn up decades ago during British colonial rule and has long been disputed. (WITH INPUT FROM REUTERS)