Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Afghanistan and Pakistan reach a fragile cease-fire after a deadly spate of border violence, India’s Russian oil imports remain a sticking point for U.S. President Donald Trump, and India moves closer to officially reopening its embassy in Kabul.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Afghanistan and Pakistan reach a fragile cease-fire after a deadly spate of border violence, India’s Russian oil imports remain a sticking point for U.S. President Donald Trump, and India moves closer to officially reopening its embassy in Kabul.

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Afghanistan and Pakistan reached a cease-fire agreement on Sunday that ended more than a week of fighting between the two countries, following talks mediated by Qatar and Turkey.

The violence was the worst between the two countries since the Taliban returned to power in 2021: Pakistan’s counterterrorism strikes and Afghan retaliation against Pakistani troops at the border killed dozens of people. Afghanistan says that Pakistan’s strikes killed civilians, including three cricket players, while Islamabad says that it only targeted militants.

From Pakistan’s perspective, the good news about the cease-fire was quickly spoiled by a related announcement: Qatar’s government, possibly under Taliban pressure, revised its public statement about the truce to remove a reference to reducing tensions on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

This wasn’t just a syntax edit—it tapped into deep-seated differences between the two countries’ interpretations of their rugged border, known as the Durand Line. To be sure, cross-border terrorism has long been the proximate trigger for Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions, including the recent crisis. But it’s important not to overlook the arguably more intractable issue of the border itself.

The Durand Line was demarcated in 1893, after negotiations between Henry Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of British colonial India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, the Afghan leader appointed by Britain after its brief occupation of Afghanistan. The line marked the frontier between Afghanistan and India. Following the Partition of India in 1947, it became the division........

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