Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Omar Daudzai. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
Ambassador Umer Daudzai rushed to Kabul to talk to the country’s senior officials, who have unleashed harsh criticism targeting Islamabad, following accusations against Pakistani forces of firing rockets into the border areas of eastern Kunar province, diplomatic and official sources said.
Daudzai, a close confidant of President Hamid Karzai, also met Pakistani foreign ministry officials before he flew to Kabul. He also met Pakistan ambassador to Afghanistan, Muhammad Sadiq, who was in Islamabad during the weekend.
“Both the ambassadors went to Kabul in the same plane,” a diplomatic source told The Express Tribune.
“Diplomats of the two countries are concerned about the current tensions and are trying to reduce them,” he said.
After tensions escalated following alleged Pakistani shelling, the Afghan government on Monday raised another issue of what they called "Pakistani military’s unilateral construction and physical reinforcement activities" along the border in the eastern Ningarhar province.
Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister, Javed Ludin, raised the issue with Pakistani ambassador in Kabul and conveyed his government's grave concerns, the Afghan Foreign Ministry statement said.
Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, denied Kabul’s claim of heavy cross-border shelling and insisted that “there was no artillery shelling from Pakistani side. They were very modest in responding to some intrusion from the Afghan side. Our troops responded, but they did so in a disciplined and responsible manner.”
Afghanistan was not impressed by Pakistan’s response and in an angry reaction, cancelled visit of Afghan military officials for joint exercises. Islamabad had termed the decision as an over-reaction.
The Express Tribune has learnt that Pakistan has started construction of a gate well inside its territory along the border with Afghanistan and there had neither been any military activity nor any intrusion into Afghan soil.
An Afghan source in Ningarhar province said – via telephone - that Pakistan has laid foundation for the gate near Zero Point, some 35 kilometers away from Afghan border posts.
“Pakistani forces had not moved towards Afghani area and had been working on the construction in their own border area,” an Afghan journalist, who visited the border areas, told The Express Tribune. He requested not to be identified.
The journalist was of the view that the Afghan border force had shown concerns as they were expecting Pakistan would inform them about the construction along the border beforehand.
Afghan sources said that local border officials of the two countries have also established contacts to avoid any misunderstanding.
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dear brothers both afghan and pakistan. yesterday dispute area belonged to uk today dispute area belongs to usa tomorrow it is not clear who will be owner the only thing you can do is to wait and see.
@Jat: Again two problems. 1. The Afghan - Pakistan border is recognized by UN. There is no border dispute pending in UN. Even if Afghans have claim on border, it does not mean Pakistan cannot do any protective work on the their side of defacto border. Pakistan does not recognize Kashmir as part of India and their is a long standing UN dispute in this regard. All maps show it as disputed territory. But Pakistan has never objected to border fencing / preventive measures on Indian side of Kashmir as it would be foolish.
As for the protection of workers building walls on border, it is not a Afghan problem.@Virkaul: to WB "*If you shut access to land locked state’s transit facility it is taken as declaration of war. *" Substantiate your assertion! Access to what? India is denied access by Pakistan to Afghanistan. Has the international community intervened? Closer to home, Rajiv Ghandy denied Nepal any access through India. Did international community intervene?
@Jamman: A good historical background, and from someone in your position, a brave piece. Afghan Governments, including that of the Taliban, did not recognize the Durand Line. International legal opinion, though, in the majority, favors the Pakistani position. However, if the dispute escalates, the minority view will be the thin end of the wedge to break open this issue all over again.
@WB: It isn't that simple. There is some thing called, "Right of Access if land locked states" and such international agreements must be adhered to. If you shut access to land locked state's transit facility it is taken as declaration of war. Other countries then intervene and the dispute gies global. International affairs are run with such intelligence.
@Maria: What will happen to the STRATEGIC ASSETS then?
@Amrullah: "As far as pashtun form of islam is considerd,look for afghanistan prior to 1979."
That was Northern Tajik and Uzbek Islam, Pashtoons always resented that and have been conservatives in general. You can blame Saudi's all you want, but end of the day it is Pashtoons that execute that twisted version and embraced it (long before 1979). You can walk in any major city of Punjab in Pakistan and then in Kandahar and Helmand and see the difference of Islam practiced at these places. Taking responsibility of failures will enable you to fix them. Not ever evil comes form abroad.
@sterry pak is a sole custodian of islam in the whole world.what can be said about countries who consider muhamad bin QASIM to be first pakistani and dont pay attention to the vedic civilization of 5000 years which got shape on the banks of INDUS.Urdu got its birth in lucknow,pak cuisines are typical north indian.Get life,do a good research and than talk about a great nation named INDIA.
@Amrullah: live in history. attack neighbours for bounties and then get ruled by sikhs.
@Babloo: Pakistan too is a real country with history and culture - that's why India has copied so much of Muslim civilization in South Asia to make up for its own lack of culture. That's why India is so desperate to work with Afghanistan to cause problems in Pakistan from its bases in Afghanistan.
Pakistan should better consider its policy of aiding to taliban and let the whole south asia usher in a era of peace otherwise it must be ready to face consequences. INDIAN
@Babloo:
Pakistan is as real as India!
Afganistan is a real country , with a distinct history , culture . Pakistan ?
@rkfromny:
We paid not only in cash with our own people's blood. Those Afghan mercernaries paid by India and others from drug money have innocent Pakistani blood on their hand.
It is UN that is paying for those refugees not US tax payer. That too is partial, Pakistan is footing the bill for these refugees.
Laugh at your own lack of knowledge of the ground realities.
Karzai is speaking India's language and these accusation are meant to divert attention from the real issue- indian use of Afghan soil against Pakistan. They are using their Panjsheri proxies to create these tension since it allows them to keep using Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan.
I am shocked at the sheer ignorance expressed in many of these comments. Has anyone here ever even been to FATA? There is no border! The terrain itself makes it impossible to build one. There are literally hundreds of routes that people pass through on DAILY basis. I met a notable elder in Nawagai (Bajaur) whose oldest son was in the Bajaur Scouts; his second son was a Khassadar; and his third son was in the ANA. His youngest son is currently a head chef at a Serena Hotel in Kabul. The elder is among a number of people I've come across from Chaman to Chitral (Yes, even Chitral!) who possess both Pakistani and Afghan IDs. Also, we act like we did the Afghans a favour by letting the come in as refugees. First of all we benefited off of their miseries by involving ourselves in a war we had no business (twice). Even in lieu of all the dollars we were getting, our military establishment did not see it pertinent to devise a system-like Iran-which would temporarily house refugees and send them back once the war was over. Instead we let them buy land and get jobs. Today the Afghan refugees are more integrated in the Pakistani mainstream than the Baloch people. Yes, overall, they're a burden on our economy and yes they're largely unaccountable but is that their fault? Imagine having to pack up and leave your lives behind, only to come to a different country whose dictator gave repeated assurances to almost every international donor in the world that it would properly facilitate the refugees in an orderly manner, only to purloin their dues and spend it on strengthening the military and fundamentalist establishment. Secondly the Durand line is not a border. Physically or on paper. According to international law successor states inherit the boundaries of their predecessors. But in the case of the Durand Line there was no predicate under which such a ruling could be applied. Primarily, the obscure circumstances under which the deal was signed should have dissolved immediately when the British left. Another point of contention was the Khan of Kalat's non-inclusion. Since the Durand Line Agreement included the Baloch, legally their representative (Khan of Kalat) was supposed to have been a co-signatory. That never happened, thus declaring the contract moot. Which means the areas East of the Indus except for Gilgit-Baltistan are still legal territories of Afghanistan. Regardless, efforts have been made by many Pashtun nationalists to unite at various points in history. First was the Bannu Resolution of 1946; second the demand to include independence or reuniting with Afghanistan as an option in the highly controversial NWFP referendum-in which only people living in the settled areas were allowed to vote. The vote was boycotted by the FNC, Khudai Khidmathgars and many other groups (because of the omission of Afghanistan/independence on the ballot). In the end only approx. 500,000 people voted out which allegedly only 51% voted in favour of Pakistan. The second incident of sedition took place in the 1970s when the NAP conspired to secede from Pakistan, only for the plot to be revealed by Akbar Bugti at a rally-and the subsequent Hyderabad tribunal. Since then, pan-Pashtun movements have largely declined but conversely have spawned a state sponsored (officially from the Soviet War to 2001) militant ideology and culture that garners a massive mainstream following in Pakistan. Radicalism permeating segments of Pakistani society was not an overnight phenomenon; it took years for it to manifest, primarily due to the Pakistani Armed Forces reluctance to unemploy the British policies (FCR, FRs) specifically designed to malign Pashtuns in order to prevent them from uniting and causing problems for the empire. Remember that KPK and FATA used to be known as the North Western Territories prior to being known as NWFP. Today the Pakistan Army largely employs those same colonial tactics in order to prevent ambitions of a greater Afghanistan or Pashtunistan, hence, the Pashtuns remain divided (de facto) in no less than 5 regions; namely, FATA, KPK, FR, Balochistan and Afghanistan. Problem with this policy is that by allowing a large amount of this territory to stagnate, and then transposing ethno-nationalistic sentiments with religious ones (e.g. Pakistan ka mathlab kia, Jihad, etc), the Pakistani establishment inadvertently created an ideology that is as resilient as the people who bore it, which today threatens to immediately destabilize a very important part of the world. The Pakistan Army had no standing presence in FATA until 2001 (also at the behest of the US) and failed to learn its lesson amidst the various conflicts that have and are taking place. To conclude, the only way we can hope to see stability and the repatriation of Afghan refugees is by dissolving FATA, FRs and North Balochistan into KPK and creating a democratic system from the grassroots Tehsil level. That way people'd be able to address their issues much faster and be able to exclude the refugees, making it easier to pinpoint, register, deport or incarcerate them. That is if our military establishment allows us. P.S: I'm a former Major who served during the conflict in Swat; currently I am an officer in the DMG.
@Moosa Khan: Yes, and we are loving it :)
shut the border and send the "refugees" back! without Pakistan border trade the Afghans will simply starve!
@Touseef Ahmed: hahhaaaa..you paid..?? you mean you took money from US taxpayers..???
Durand Line was not a problem. Afghans respected it though they did not recognize it. It is acts like Hamid Gul's Jalalabad venture and the continued mindset of that nature that prompts Afghans to question Durand Line. I personally think that if Pakistan controls or eliminates the talibans in its territory, it would create goodwill and also enable Afghanistan to do the same with the talibans on their side. This will be good for both countries.
Pakistanis must eat daal only
@Amrullah:
So Taliban Islam is fine, (because they are mostly all Pashtoon), Pashtoon belt today is world's largest producer of Opium and Heroin. Punjabis do not go there to cultivate that.
Pipe dream of Pashtoonistan is long gone. Even in KP itself a large chunk of population is not Pashtoon and want a separate province, not to mention Indigenous population of Kohat and Peshawar. Durrand line is the border like it or not. It be nice however to see a Canada/US or Australia/New Zealand type of friendly relationship with ease of movement between borders. But borders are here to stay.
Just think which one is the REAL Arab country, Arabs have been around in a large part of Asia and Africa for thousands of years and now live in many different countries. Which is real Germanic land, Germany, Austria of Switzerland? What is real Malay land, Malaysia, Philippine or Indonesia?
@Iftikhar Khan: While you are in the building mood, why not send another crew on the eastern front too?
@Jat: You are really true to your name"Jat'. The people of Pakistani pashtun areas voted to be part of Pakistan during the pre partition refrendum. Afghanistan has no right to challange the will of those people.Afghanistan is also welcome to try thier luck, attack Pakistan and take those areas by force.
Build a wall on the border with Afghanistan, send the refugees back, stop interference in Afghanistan, Stop hiding Mullah Omer, arrest the quetta Shura leadership, stop the flow of fertilizers and Jihadists into Afghanistan, and stop supporting Haqqani Network. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
Our security establishment is doing the right thing. They should set up more check posts as the terrorists sneak in to Pakistan and have caused several casusalties. Army must open fire on these who cross in to Pakistan from Afghanistan. Good job by Army.
@Jat: I'm Pathan too and most Pathans are patriotic Pakistanis. Period. It's these afghans who insist we are traitors but there are more Pathans in Pakistan just like more punjabis in Pakistan than India. It's through these refugees, my ancestral town has dwindled. And if the border isn't recognized then fine but the afghans shouldn't forget who their neighbors are.
Good They must lessen tension. it will favour both
Jat
we will fix every thing its just a mater of time and aufcors we will keep india in mind to.
@Stu: The whole world apart from Afghanistan recognizes the Durand line
First and foremost the border is between two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan. If one of the countries does not recognize it, then it becomes a dispute. Pakistan is just one of the two parties involved. Afghanistan is the other.
Afghanistan will most likely use their artillery to bring down any large scale construction that Pakistan does in the disputed area.
@Jat: The whole world apart from Afghanistan recognizes the Durand line.
It doesn't matter what they think, we should build a fence.
Cost of fencing the Durand line does not exceed the damage of terrorism,illegal immigration and drug traffickers from Afghanistan.
India's puppets in full swing.
Do they dare Nuclear powered Pakistan?
He forgot to take 3 million afghan refugees with him.
@Maria and @Candid1 Read the article today in Dawn about the Taliban in Karachi. . The culture of these people will take hundreds of years to change. Think of this if I went to Afganistan what are my survival prospects. These people treat outsiders like dirt and will enslave them given the chance. Even In normal times they will treat me like a dog. It is better to send them back and wait for them to evolve civilized manners. Why should we host these people.
@Candid1: @Maria: I totally agree with both of you. I also like to add; Most Afghan protest are adviced by India, who can't see the two countries getting close for any reason whatsoever. Although it's good for India tradewise & peace-in-Kasmir wise but that would also give Pakistan a moment to breath which is somehow translated by them as "good for Pakistan" & bad for India and so must be denied.
@Maria: Oh and one more thing even your blue-eyed boys, the Taliban, did not recognize the Durand Line when they ruled Afghanistan.
@Maria: Two problems 1. Afghans do not recognize the current border as signified by the arbitrary Durand Line drawn by the British. 2. Pakistan does not have money to undertake such a big project, neither peace in the region for workers to work safely.
You can't protect your people and military in settled areas like Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar - how will you provide security to those constructing the wall in the disturbed areas ?
Ingratitude Afghanis.
Most Pakistanis want nothing more than a complete wall along the border with Afghanistan to prevent the incursion of criminals and militants. Pakistan has suffered too much and for too long at the hands of its neighbour. There is wide evidence to show Afghanistan remains a base for terrorist activities for their Indian masters. This was explicity states by the US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. ISAF and NATO should help Pakistan construct a big wall and place mines to prevent any illegal movement across the border. They should also help send back all the Afghani refugees living in Pakistan or let them join other Afghani refugees living in Western countries.
Billions of dollars spent on the wall throughout Pak-Afghan border will be the best money ever spent. Send all refugees back, only documented crossings.
Abnadon afghanistan. send refugees back. we have paid enough cost for them
@Candid1: What border ? The artificial line drawn by the cunning British to divide the Pashtun nation ?
Afghanistan, as its national policy does not recognize the Durand Line. Stop living in the la la land.
@Candid1: Sahib, do not you think there are already ENOUGH walls on borders? and you suggesting more walls? find some solution and for GOD sake, no more walls.
Send the illegal Afghan refuges back, that should straighten things up and shut their mouths for a while.
I fail to understand how the Afghan government concluded that Pakistan's construction of a fence and/or any other physical barriers along the internationally recognized and accepted Afghan-Pakistan border was 'against all international norms'.
Could someone try and highlight which 'international norms' Pakistan has violated through the construction of said fence and/or other physical barriers along the international border with Afghanistan?
Afghanistan and the US have both been complaining that Pakistan does not do enough to stop the flow of insurgents from Pakistan to Afghanistan so any such move on the part of Pakistan should in fact be welcomed by the US and Afghans with offers of assistance and cooperation to further extend the 'fence and/or physical barriers'.
But of course the reality is that the Afghan government does not even want to implement a Pakistani proposal to use biometric ID's for all individuals crossing the border through official border-crossings.
An Afghan source in Ningarhar province said – via telephone – that Pakistan has laid foundation for the gate near Zero Point, some 35 kilometers away from Afghan border posts.
So now they want us to get their approval prior to any construction in our own area? That's some messed up bloated ego!
Build a wall on the border with Afghanistan, and send the refugees back. Enough is enough!
Recalling your Ambassador for consultations isn't a positive sign in relations -- should be regarded as another negative message to Pakistan.