Pak-Afghan border fencing to be completed by end of 2019: DG ISPR

Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor says the project will benefit peaceful people of two countries while restricting terrorists

The fencing work on Pakistan-Afghanistan border will be completed by the end of 2019, said the Pakistan Army’s spokesperson, hoping the massive unilateral undertaking will effectively benefit peaceful people of the two countries while restricting terrorists.

802km out of 1,200km has been covered and work on 233 out of 843 forts has been completed in ‘pri 1 areas’, said Major-General Asif Ghafoor, the director general of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in a tweet on Saturday.

According to the chief military spokesperson, the total length of the fenced border will be 2,611km. He said the armed forces are aiming a speedy completion of the project in ‘pri 1 areas’, adding that the full project will be completed by the end of 2019.



Maj-Gen Ghafoor said the fenced border, once completed, will benefit peaceful people of Pakistan and Afghanistan while restricting terrorists.

https://twitter.com/OfficialDGISPR/status/1073918074909327365

The military-led construction effort went into action last year. The pair of nine-foot wire fences, with a six-foot gap, and topped with barbed wire, runs along rugged terrain and snow-capped mountains as high as 12,000 feet.

Officials estimate the project will cost over $550 million.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) over anti-terrorism cooperation between the three countries in Kabul.

The MoU was signed by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and their Afghan counterpart Salahuddin Rabbani.