Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to a temporary ceasefire for Eid al-Fitr, the celebration which follows Ramadan, the Muslim period of fasting and prayer. Under the agreement, reportedly taken at the initiative of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Türkiye, hostilities will be halted from midnight March 18-19 to midnight March 23-24.
As of now, it is likely that fighting will begin again in this geopolitical hotspot in the center of Asia created by the dirty Anglo-American ("Epstein") interests . On March 16, a Pakistani missile struck a drug rehabilitation center in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, according to the Afghan government. The death toll at that civilian site is reported to have now risen to 408, with at least 265 more injured. Pakistan denies any responsibility, insisting that they only hit military targets, but the deaths still mount. Abdul Matin Gani, a spokesperson for the Afghan Interior Ministry promised on March 17 that “based on the leadership’s decision, Pakistan will receive a crushing response in the near future.”
Russia and China have offered their good offices to help the two countries reach a more permanent settlement of the state of war which began in earnest between them on Feb. 26. China has sent a Special Envoy to help mediate between the two. China’s friendship with Pakistan is well-known, but as Foreign Minister Wang Yi assured Afghan Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi in a March 14 phone call, “China has always maintained an objective and impartial stance on the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan;” the two are “inseparable brothers and neighbors that cannot be moved away from each other,” so they must resolve their differences and contradictions through dialogue.
