ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has closed the Torkham border crossing with Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the facility in the war-battered country, the Minister for Interior said Sunday.
Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said the decision to close the border was taken due to an extraordinary situation on the other side. He told Geo News that the border was closed when Afghanistan police surrendered to the Taliban.
But, he said, the Chaman border point with Afghanistan remains open.
Since US-led foreign troops began leaving Afghanistan earlier this year, fighting between the Taliban and Afghan forces has escalated significantly. Today, Taliban fighters entered Kabul “from all sides” an interior ministry official.
The hardline insurgents have also taken control of several border crossings, including with Iran and central Asian countries, but the crossings with Pakistan provides a significant customs revenue.
Islamabad has already said that it cannot bear any load of new refugees in the wake of the crisis in Afghanistan.
The military is about to complete fencing along the long, porous border, saying the step has been taken to check the militants’ movement across the border. Earlier this month, it said it has completed 90 percent of the fence, vowing to complete the project this summer.
The government said it is constructing the fence to prevent cross-border militant attacks.
Work on the fence along the 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border with Afghanistan — known as the Durand Line — started in 2017 when militants repeatedly launched cross-border attacks on security posts.
The border barrier between the two countries consists of two sets of chain-link fences separated by a 2-meter (6.5-foot) space that has been filled with concertina wire coils. The double fence is about 4 meters (13 feet) high.
The military has also installed surveillance cameras to check any movement along the border.
