Afghanistan, Pakistan Durand Line: Friction point between Afghanistan, Pakistan

The issue has planted doubt among Afghans and Pakistan for quite a long time, and is an expected flashpoint in relations between the Taliban and Pakistan.

People cross the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. (AP)

Recently, Taliban representative Zabiullah Mujahid told a Pashto divert in Pakistan that Afghans go against the fence raised by Pakistan along the Durand Line. "The new Afghan government will report its situation on this issue. The fencing has isolated individuals and separated families. We need to establish a protected and tranquil climate on the boundary so there is no compelling reason to make boundaries," Mujahid said. 

The issue has planted doubt among Afghans and Pakistan for quite a long time, and is an expected flashpoint in relations between the Taliban and Pakistan.

Line separating Pashtun

The Durand Line is a tradition of the nineteenth century Great Game between the Russian and British domains in which Afghanistan was utilized as a support by the British against a dreaded Russian expansionism to its east.

The understanding outlining what became known as the Durand Line was endorsed on November 12, 1893 between the British government employee Sir Henry Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman, then, at that point the Afghan ruler. 

Abdur Rahman became lord in 1880, two years after the finish of the Second Afghan War in which the British assumed liability for a few regions that were essential for the Afghan realm. He was basically a British manikin. His concurrence with Durand outlined the restrictions of his and British India's "ranges of prominence" on the Afghan "boondocks" with India.

The seven-statement arrangement perceived a 2,670-km line which, as indicated by Rajiv Dogra , creator of Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart, Durand drew on the spot on a little guide of Afghanistan during his dealings with the Amir. The line extends from the boundary with China to Afghanistan's line with Iran. 

Statement 4 said the "boondocks line" would be set down exhaustively and divided by British and Afghan magistrates "whose item will be to show up by shared comprehension at a limit which will follow with the best conceivable precision to the line displayed in the guide appended to this understanding, having kick the bucket respect to the current nearby privileges of towns connecting the wilderness". 

In all actuality, the line slice through Pashtun ancestral regions, leaving towns, families, and land split between the two "ranges of prominence". It has been portrayed as a "line of contempt", subjective, strange, brutal and a cunning on the Pashtuns. A few history specialists trust it was a ploy to isolate the Pashtuns with the goal that the British could keep authority over them without any problem. It additionally put on the British side the vital Khyber Pass.

Cross-line strains 

With freedom in 1947, Pakistan acquired the Durand Line, and with it additionally the Pashtun dismissal of the line, and Afghanistan's refusal to remember it. Afghanistan was the lone nation to cast a ballot against Pakistan joining the United Nations in 1947. 

'Pashtunistan' — a free nation of the Pashtuns — was an interest made by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan at the hour of Partition, in spite of the fact that he later surrender to the truth of Partition. The closeness of the 'Wilderness Gandhi' to India was a state of strain between the two nations very quickly. The dread of Indian help to Pashtun patriotism frequents Pakistan to date, and is installed in its Afghan approach. 

Pakistan's creation and backing for the Taliban is seen by some as a transition to devastate ethnic Pashtun patriotism with an Islamic personality. However, it didn't work out the manner in which Pakistan had arranged. At the point when the Taliban held onto power in Kabul the first occasion when, they dismissed the Durand Line. They additionally reinforced Pashtun character with an Islamic radicalism to deliver the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, whose fear monger assaults since 2007 remaining the nation shaken.

The fence 

As cross-line pressures crested in 2017 with a few assaults on Pakistani boundary posts by aggressors that Pakistan blamed Afghanistan for shielding – while the Afghan government blamed Pakistan for giving place of refuge to Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network – Pakistan started raising a fence on the Durand Line. While it might have diminished the development of assailants from Afghanistan into Pakistan, it did little to stop the development of Afghan Taliban across and back. 

Presently generally finished, the fence has been a wellspring of more pressures as Afghans, and Pashtuns on the two sides of the line, consider it to be a move by Pakistan to formalize the limit, making their division long-lasting. This is the fence that Zabiullah Mujahid said was not adequate to the Taliban. 

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An Al Jazeera report said the $500 m fencing is really two arrangements of steel wall with a 6-ft hole, loaded up with concertina wire curls. It is 11.6 ft high on the Pakistani side, and 13 ft on the Afghan side. It is fitted with reconnaissance cameras and infrared finders, and accentuated by 1,000 lookouts. Cross-line development may be permitted through 16 officially assigned focuses after the fulfillment of the task. 

Pakistan accepts that in the new circumstance in Afghanistan, the fence will assist with controlling any overflow from distress and bedlam there.