Why Do Pak-Afghan Relations Become Volatile

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, August 23, 2003

Why Do Pak-Afghan Relations Become Volatile

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Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri on Friday concluded a two-day trip to Kabul, the latest in a series of high level mutual visits between the two neighbors in efforts to mend their fences in recent months.

Although both Islamabad and Kabul expressed their good will and determination to have friendly ties and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali and Finance Minister Asraf Ghandi have visited Islamabad one after another since April, the Pak-Afghan relations have become volatile and will probably remain so due to border disputes, trade issues and mutual distrust in the anti-terror campaign.

The delicate relations between the two countries have been aggravated since June 20 when Islamabad sent 2,000 troops to its northwestern Mohmand tribal area bordering Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province to cooperate with the US and Afghan troops in tracking Taliban remnants and al-Qaida terrorists.

The deployment culminated in trading fires between the Pakistani and Afghan troops and finally triggered border disputes over the 2,500 kilometer-long Durand Line which was delimited in 1893 and recognized both by British India and Afghan Amir Abdul Rehman. Afghanistan kept accusing the Pakistani ps of intruding into its territory while Islamabad time and again rejected such allegations.

The Pak-Afghan relations further deteriorated after an angry mob ransacked the Pakistani embassy in Kabul on July 8 to protest at the alleged incursion by the Pakistani troops. To appease the Pakistanis, President Karzai made a quick apology to Islamabad for the attack and assured no such incident would happen again in the future.

A tripartite commission comprising military officials of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States was set up in mid-July to find out what was happening on the Durand Line and the commission members agreed to use global positioning system to sort out the border disputes along the tribal area dividing the two countries. No conclusion has been reached to date and sporadic skirmishes continue.

The future of settling the border disputes is gloomy. Both sides are sticking to their own claims based on different maps of the Durand Line: Pakistan uses a British map while Afghanistan uses a Russian map drawn decades ago.

Furthermore, Afghan Interior Minister Jalali stressed on July 30 in Kabul that the transitional government of President Karzai is not in a position to decide about the Durand Line which the Pakistan side believes is a "closed chapter" and such decision can be made only after the formation of a parliament by the Afghan people.

The transit trade issue is another main obstacle which has been impeding development of the Pak-Afghan relations ever since Pakistan got independence in 1947. Afghanistan, as a land-locked country, needs transit through Pakistan, and the two neighbors signed the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA) in 1965 under which Afghanistan's transit right through Pakistan was recognized.

This agreement has never been implemented smoothly. Islamabad, on occasions, has terminated this facility or tried to control the list of items that the Afghans can import through Pakistan due to "widespread smuggling."

Islamabad said that a large proportion of the goods imported by the Afghans under the ATTA were re-exported into the Pakistani market as they had little or no demand in Afghanistan and the Pakistani industries, therefore, have suffered a lot.

While some adjustments have been made in the protocol and Pakistan has offered new proposals like complementary tariff structures to eliminate the smuggling margins, the Afghan side has been demanding a totally unfettered access under the ATTA.

According to estimates published on Aug. 4 in local English newspaper The News, Afghanistan's trade in 2000 was 2.5 billion US dollars, largely comprising unofficial exports to Pakistan. About 90 percent of the official and unofficial imports were re-exported to neighboring countries among which 88.2 percent were re-exported to Pakistan, the paper said.

Distrust emerging in the fight against the ousted Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorists also spoils the Pak-Afghan relations. It seems that Pakistan's U-turn policy towards the former Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack has not washed off its image as a strong supporter of the extremist militia.

Some Afghans even argue that Pakistan's policy has not changed at all and that whatever support Pakistan is giving to the US-led anti-terror coalition is only under Washington's pressure and it is not effective.

In late July in separate interviews with media, President Karzai expressed his anger over Pakistan's alleged aggressive policies on the border in Mohmand Agency, the support being extended to the Taliban and Pakistan's refusal and failure to initiate a viable trade and transit agreement with his country.

"I want to establish parameters of the relationship between the two countries. One we want friendship. Two we want trade and business. Three we want a civilized relationship with Pakistan which avoids acts of aggression against Afghanistan and support for extremism," said Karzai.

Afghan Interior Minister Jalali also blamed increasing attacks inside Afghanistan on elements coming from the Pakistani side of the porous border. People were coming from across the border to attack Afghanistan and then escape across the border, Jalali told a joint news conference on July 24 during a two-day visit to Islamabad.

Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat, however, dismissed his Afghan counterpart's allegations. He insisted that "Pakistan does not allow anyone, any group, any individual or any organization to operate from its soil (against Afghanistan)" and expressed his country's grave concerns over the expanding influence of India in Afghanistan.

Pakistan alleged that the Indian consulates in southeastern Afghanistan were involved in a suicide terrorist attack on an imambargh on July 4 in Quetta, capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province, which killed at least 50 Shiites and wounded more than 60. But up till now, the Pakistani authorities have issued no evidence to support the allegation.

Islamabad and Kabul have thus repeatedly asked each other to assure that their soil will not be used against each other and they will continue to cooperate in the fight against terrorism.

Besides the above issues, the repatriation of about two million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan, the release of the Pakistani prisoners detained in Afghanistan during the US-led anti-terror war in 2001 and the rampant drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Pakistan have also complicated the two neighbors' efforts to improve their relations.

Analysts here widely believe that the Pak-Afghan relations, in a long term, will remain unstable due to internal and external factors although Islamabad and Kabul know clearly that they need each other more in the fight for national security and against terrorism as well as in developing their own economies.

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