On a cold December morning in 2025, the spotlight once again turned to Afghanistan and its troubled borders, as regional powers and neighboring countries scrambled to address the mounting security, economic, and humanitarian crises radiating from the war-ravaged nation. Over the course of just a few days, a flurry of high-stakes diplomatic meetings, deadly violence, and urgent appeals for cooperation laid bare the region’s deep anxieties and the persistent shadow cast by decades of foreign intervention.
On Sunday, December 14, Iran’s foreign ministry hosted an unprecedented summit in Tehran, bringing together special envoys from Afghanistan’s neighbors: Iran, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. According to AhlulBayt News Agency, the gathering marked the first time these countries had met in this format, aiming to forge a regional consensus on how to stabilize Afghanistan. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi opened the session with a clear message: "Regional stability is possible within regional formats and without foreign interventions," he declared, underscoring Tehran’s conviction that local solutions, not outside interference, would pave the way for peace.
The stakes could hardly be higher. Four years after the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan remains unrecognized by the world community, and its new rulers have struggled to meet international demands. Meanwhile, regional countries are feeling the heat. The threat of terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and the spillover of violence and migration have left Afghanistan’s neighbors wary and, at times, exasperated. The Tehran meeting’s agenda reflected these urgent concerns, with participants emphasizing the need to strengthen stability, maintain economic and trade ties, combat terrorism and drug trafficking, and de-escalate tensions—especially between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Ismail Baghaee, spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, explained that the meeting was intended to "reach a regional consensus and to find a solution to boost stability and security in the peripheral environment of the regional countries." The envoys agreed to reconvene next March in Islamabad, signaling a commitment to ongoing dialogue and coordination. This session is part of a broader series of regional initiatives, including the so-called "Moscow Format," which recently gathered officials from Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Iran, sharing a long border with Afghanistan, has played host to many such meetings in recent years, reflecting both its proximity and its deep investment in regional security.
The urgency of these efforts was thrown into sharp relief just two days later, when suspected militants opened fire on a police officer guarding a polio vaccination team in Bajaur, a district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. As reported by the Associated Press, the attack left the officer and a passerby dead. No polio workers were harmed, but the incident underscored the dangers facing health workers in this volatile region. It came just one day after Pakistan launched a nationwide campaign to immunize 45 million children—a vital effort, given that Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack in a statement, vowing "strong action against those responsible." The government-run Polio Eradication Initiative noted that Pakistan had reported 30 polio cases since January, down from 74 in the same period last year. But the threat to health workers remains dire. Militants, often linked to groups operating from Afghanistan, have killed more than 200 polio workers and their police protectors since the 1990s, fueled by conspiracy theories that vaccination campaigns are Western plots to sterilize Muslim children.
Sharif’s outrage was echoed in his diplomatic engagements. On December 15, he met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the "Peace and Trust" conference in Turkmenistan. According to Pakistan’s information ministry, Sharif warned that "militant threats originating from Afghanistan pose serious risks to regional security" and pressed Iran to use its influence to encourage Afghanistan’s rulers to take "concrete steps against armed groups operating from Afghan territory." He insisted that Islamabad’s concerns remained unresolved, and called for "practical measures rather than assurances" from Afghanistan’s authorities. The meeting also covered cross-border security, the deteriorating situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the broader challenge of stabilizing the region.
Relations between Pakistan and the Taliban-led government in Kabul have soured in recent months, marked by border tensions, sporadic clashes, and mutual recriminations. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan-based groups of launching attacks, while Taliban officials deny responsibility. Analysts cited by Khaama Press say this deep mistrust threatens to escalate without sustained regional engagement—a point not lost on the diplomats gathered in Tehran and Turkmenistan.
At the heart of these tensions lies a complex web of economic, security, and political challenges. The Tehran summit placed special emphasis on integrating Afghanistan into regional trade networks, with Araghchi highlighting the country’s "geoeconomic position as making the country the hub of connective networks of Central Asia, West Asia, and South Asia." The hope is that by linking Afghanistan to regional and international markets, neighbors can reduce its isolation, spur development, and stem the tide of migration that has placed enormous strain on Iran and Central Asian states. As AhlulBayt News Agency reported, "Integrating Afghanistan into regional corridors and trade networks presents vast opportunities for infrastructure development, increased exports and imports, job creation, and attracting investment."
Yet, the obstacles are formidable. The root causes of Afghanistan’s crises, Araghchi argued, "must be sought beyond the region." Chief among these are the lingering effects of two decades of foreign occupation, crippling Western sanctions, and the continued freeze of roughly $7 billion in Afghan foreign reserves held in Western banks. Regional countries at the Tehran meeting called for these sanctions to be lifted and assets unfrozen, arguing that doing so would alleviate Afghanistan’s economic crisis, enable the payment of civil servant salaries, and revive critical infrastructure. Such steps, they contend, would directly reduce insecurity and help control migration flows.
But the specter of renewed foreign intervention looms large. U.S. officials are reportedly pressuring the Taliban to allow a return to the Bagram airbase, a vast military complex that was once central to American operations in Afghanistan. Taliban leaders have flatly refused, and the regional envoys in Tehran were united in opposing any new foreign military presence. As the AhlulBayt News Agency put it, "Foreign interventions, whether in the form of military occupation or through economic and political pressure, have consistently derailed Afghanistan’s path to independent governance and reconstruction." The consensus among Afghanistan’s neighbors is clear: lasting stability requires local solutions, not another round of great power games.
As the dust settles on this week’s events, the path ahead remains fraught with uncertainty. The region’s leaders are acutely aware that Afghanistan’s fate is intertwined with their own security and prosperity. Diplomatic engagement, economic integration, and a rejection of foreign meddling offer a possible way forward. But as the violence in Bajaur and the tense exchanges in Turkmenistan and Tehran show, the challenges are as daunting as ever. For now, Afghanistan’s neighbors are left to hope that their collective efforts can tip the balance toward peace, rather than another cycle of crisis.
