At dawn on a cool October morning, officials in Islamabad and Kabul performed a rare ritual in the history of their troubled frontier: they agreed to keep talking.

After five days of tense exchanges in Istanbul, complete with diplomatic walkouts, late-night interventions by Turkish and Qatari mediators, and negotiators nearly boarding flights home, Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban settled on extending a ceasefire and committed to working out a mechanism to verify violations.

In most regions, this would be routine diplomacy. In South Asia, where ceasefires are less agreements than moments of quiet between artillery bursts, it passes for progress. Pakistan’s defence minister cautiously called it a “ray of light”. Taliban officials offered familiar assurances about mutual respect. Turkey and Qatar congratulated themselves – justifiably – for keeping two suspicious neighbours in the same room. But even the most optimistic diplomats would privately concede what can be described wryly as a framework for peace, not yet peace itself. Frameworks in this relationship are delicate instruments; they seldom survive their first encounter with reality.

To see why even this thin reed matters, one must understand why the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan has rarely been at ease. The 2,640-kilometre Durand Line, drawn in 1893 by a British administrator, was intended as a hard border. Afghans never fully accepted it. Pakistan insists it is settled international law. Kabul sees unfinished history. The mutual resentment dates back to Pakistan's very birth: Afghanistan was the only country to oppose Pakistan’s admission to the United Nations in 1947. For decades, the Pashtunistan dispute simmered. There were border closures, cross-border raids and propaganda campaigns, all fuelled by the suspicion that geography had imposed an untrustworthy neighbour.

History offered few remedies. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan became the staging ground of the anti-Soviet jihad. More than three million Afghans crossed into Pakistan; we cultivated mujahideen commanders and later the Taliban as instruments of strategic depth.........

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