Pakistan’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Amb. Asif Durrani steps down

Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Ambassador Asif Durrani, a retired foreign service officer, has stepped down from his current role. Sources say his last day in office was on Wednesday.

Durrani, who has served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to Iran and the UAE, was appointed to the position in May 2023 after his predecessor Sadiq Khan resigned.

Sources say that Durrani resigned due to personal reasons and that he has gone back to being a senior fellow at an Islamabad based think tank, a position he held before taking the role as the Special Representative on Afghanistan.

Amb. Durrani's scorecard

As envoy, Durrani’s tenure was marred by the challenges of the fractious Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship. While Durrani resolved outstanding issues such as visas, the one-document regime, and transit trade, the issue of terrorism dominated the tumultuous bilateral relationship.

While continuing to press for girls' education, Ambassador Durrani was of the opinion that one issue should not dominate engagement with neighbors, in this case the Taliban, especially now that they are a geopolitical reality in charge of Afghanistan.

In his five visits to Afghanistan and over a dozen in-person meetings with Taliban representatives in Kabul, Doha and elsewhere, Ambassador Durrani stressed that the Taliban needed to give up terrorism as a tool to bring Afghanistan's neighbours to the negotiating table.

“Terrorism emanating out of Afghanistan is a concern not only for Pakistan but other neighbouring countries like China, Iran, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as well."
Ambassador Durrani, July 2024.

Pakistan launched its first first air-raid in Afghanistan in March this year, following a deadly terror attack inside Pakistani territory on the military.

Ambassador Durrani was appointed as special representative in May 2023 by the coalition government led by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif between April 2022 to August 2023. He was retained in the same role by the caretaker government and continued as envoy when the incumbent government took charge in March 2024 following elections.