Stuck on the border

Nearly a week on from the incident that triggered the latest round of tension on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the dispute remains unresolved and the border is still shut. All traffic both foot and vehicular is suspended and trucks stretch for miles on both sides of the border. It will be recalled that on August 19, a crowd on the Afghan side pelted stones at the Friendship Gate (a misnomer if ever there was one) and desecrated the Pakistan flag. The origins of the tension, the new gate apart, are slightly obscure but may be connected to demonstrations in Balochistan that were triggered by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi making a speech on Independence Day. Afghanistan has long been a beneficiary of Indian aid and enjoys wide support among the population. Afghan border forces did nothing to restrain the demonstrators.

A flag meeting on August 23 failed to solve anything and security has been raised rather than eased. Traders on both sides of the border are losing money every hour that it is closed. Once again, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India find themselves intertwined in a seemingly insoluble dispute. Tension and violence flare at the slightest provocation by any side. The politicians add fuel to the fire with statements calculated to keep the pot boiling and external intervention never does anything beyond exacerbate an already perilous situation. Our relations with India continue to slide and despite the Afghan government condemning the desecration of the Pakistan flag, there is a sense that our foreign relations are being at the very least imperfectly managed. As noted previously in these columns, without a political will running in parallel across all of the players, there is scant room for movement, nothing to negotiate, and the sterile cycle of confrontation continues to eat away at regional development in the broadest sense. The poverty of political courage on all sides feeds the spiral downwards. Pakistan, India and Afghanistan together hold the keys to regional stability and peace, and all are unable to turn the lock.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 26^th, 2016.

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