“Friendship Gate” reads the sign at the main border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is a misnomer. Any remaining friendship between the governments in Islamabad and Kabul began to dissipate when Pakistan closed the border last month.
Although Pakistan later re-opened the border on what it called humanitarian grounds, the fraught relationship seems set to continue deteriorating.
The main cause of the deterioration is the recent decision by Pakistan to fence the border, which is over 2,000-km long, as a measure to counter terrorism. The Pakistani government intends to spend 12 billion rupees (about US$115 million) on building 423 small forts strung out along the border, each 6km from the next and all equipped with cameras and other sensors, and on fencing the gaps between them.
Pakistani policy on countering terrorism is based on two givens: that there is no military solution to the problem in the long run: and that solving it requires cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan, as the countries that suffer most from the problem. But the plan to build the border fence is an indication of the differences Islamabad and Kabul over how to counter terrorism.
Afghanistan is implacably opposed to any fence. The plan to build it may signify Pakistani resolve to prevent terrorists crossing the border at will. But acting alone against terrorists is unlikely to benefit Pakistan.
For one thing, the plan to build the border fence contradicts Pakistani policy in two respects. First, it is a military measure for the long term, because the fence will have to be guarded. Second, it is a unilateral measure, which is unlikely to increase cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials say the main reason for building the fence was the failure of Kabul to act against militants based in Afghanistan. A spokesman for the Afghan government said any action on the border taken by Pakistan with the agreement of Afghanistan would be “ineffective, impractical and impossible.”
Instead of countering terrorism, the fence would be likely to spur rivalry between Kabul and Islamabad, allowing terrorists, whichever side of the border they are on, to play one government off against the other, and so cancel out any benefit to Pakistan of having the fence. It is unlikely that the fence would make the areas on the Afghan side inhabited by Pakhtuns any less disorderly, so those areas would probably remain havens for terrorists.
The main effect of the fence would be to divide inhabitants of the border region that share certain characteristics, rather than to quell terrorism. People on one side of the border are often the same as those on the other side – ethnically, linguistically, socially, culturally and in their religious beliefs.
Relationships between the peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan at the basic level would be the first casualties of this military solution.
Building a fence dividing Afghanistan from Pakistan would also have discordant echoes in other areas of foreign policy. If the fence is completed, how then could Islamabad object to a wall to divide Pakistan from India, which the government in New Delhi means to build?
The prospect for Pakistan is that it would be fenced in on two of its four sides. A ring of physical barriers would reinforce the underlying conviction, common to all parties, that Pakistan and Afghanistan are enemies and ever will be, and that India and Pakistan are enemies and ever will be. The barriers would be barriers to peace.
What a stupid article. Every soverign countyr has a fence at its borders. To cross the border you need a travel dociment and must pass through proper entry/exit points. the writer got nothing els to do???
Why was the wall not built in last 70 years? Why did Pakistan not built the wall when the so called "jihad" was being imposed upon them in the 1980s? Why now?
By the way, if you pay close attention, the author is pitting the decision to build the fence againt Pakistan’s anti-terror narratives. He is not negating what you say "sovereign rights" of a state.
By the way you definitely need to read more on "borders"….artifical restrictions on human freedom and relations. Just try to go beyond conventional understanding of borders.
Maaria Shah Because not the situation is much different than 1970s
The real issue is Durand Line, which is a fake border between these two countries. Pakistan worries about the real story behind the "Durand Line issue" which is older than the history of Paksitan itself !
Maaria Shah Jihad was imposed by Afghanistan on Pakistan during 1950-1970. You need to go into the History to understadn the terrorism in Pakistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are 2 different countries and every country has a right to counter all sorts of smuggling. Innocent people do not enter another country by crossing jungles and mountains. Afghans should follow the international rule if they are civilized people.
Donald Smith
Funny! That’s all I can say
Afghans don’t want fence because they will lose billions of dollars of income from smuggled goods back into Pakistan. 90% of Afghanistan imports end up in Pakistani markets which causes huge amount of losses in national revenue.
Durand line aside border must be controlled. That long history of misuse by Afghans should come to an end.
The wall is being opposed by the proxy government in Kabul because it disrupts the free-flow of TTP and related groups that has caused mayhem in Pakistan. Families living on both sides of the border will not be affected as they will be able to travel across with proper papers. A representative government in Kabul could be another solution but that too is being denied by the, so called, champions of democracy.
China is running full-steam ahead with multi-tier diplomacy to create a synergy of thought and action among regional countries as part of its intense focus on the realization of its ambitious One-Belt, One-Road (OBOR) initiatives. It believes that the objectives would be hard to achieve if political conflicts kept regional countries at loggerheads. Stability and development require peaceful neighborhoods.
Bringing Afghanistan & Pakistan close: Will China’s efforts bear fruit?
https://www.globalvillagespace.com/bringing-afghanistan-pakistan-close-will-chinas-efforts-bear-fruit/