Durand Line(HusainMomin)

The Durand Line is the term for the poorly marked 2,640 kilometer (1,610 mile) border
between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After reaching a virtual stalemate in two wars against the Afghans (see Great Game, First
Anglo-Afghan War and European influence in Afghanistan), the British forced Amir
Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan in 1893 to come to an agreement under duress to
demarcate the border between Afghanistan and what was then British India (now North-
West Frontier Province (N.W.F.P.), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (F.A.T.A.) and
Balochistan provinces of Pakistan).

The Durand Line is named after Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British
Indian government, and the treaty also granted the Amir of Afghanistan (Abdur Rahman
Khan) an annual salary from Britain along with shipments of weaponry. One of the two
representatives of the Government of Afghanistan was the Ahmadi Sahibzada Abdul Latif
of Khost.

The Durand Line is sometimes referred to as the "Zero Line". Excluding the desert
portion southwest of 66 degrees 15 minutes east longitude, 84% of the line follows clear
physical features (rivers or watershed divides). See Google flyover in links below. The
precise route of the remaining 16% straight line segments is also demarcated from the
1894-95 demarcation reports and subsequent mapping such as the detailed (1:50,000
scale) Soviet maps of the 1980s.

Territorial dispute

Afghanistan before the Durand agreement of 1893.

Afghanistan's loya jirga of 1949 declared the Durand Line invalid as they saw it as ex
parte on their side (since British India ceased to exist in 1947 with the independence of
Pakistan). This had no tangible effect as there has never been a move to enforce such a
declaration due to long periods of constant wars with other neighbors in the region. And
most importantly, there was no time limit mentioned in the Durand Treaty. Additionally,
world courts have universally upheld uti possidetis juris, i.e, binding bilateral agreements
with or between colonial powers are "passed down" to successor independent states, as
with most of Africa. A unilateral declaration by one party has no effect; boundary changes
must be made bilaterally. Thus, the Durand Line boundary remains in effect today as the
international boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is recognized as such by
most nations. Despite pervasive internet rumors to the contrary, US Department of State
and the British Foreign Commonwealth Office documents and spokespersons have
confirmed that the Durand Line, like virtually all international boundaries, has no
expiration date, nor is there any mention of such in any Durand Line documents.[1][2][3]
The 1921 treaty expiration refers only to the 1921 agreements.

Because the Durand Line artificially divides the Pashtun people, it continues to be a
source of tension between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Frequent press
statements from 2005 to 2007 by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf calling for the
building of a fence delineating the Afghanistan/Pakistan border have been met with
resistance from numerous political parties within both countries. Leaders of Pashtuns on
both sides of the border do not recognize the Durand Line.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

From 2003 to the present, Pakistani military patrols have established bases up to a
kilometer or two onto the Afghanistan side of the boundary in the Yaqubi area opposite
Pakistan's Mohmand Agency [13] and a few hundred yards inside Afghanistan near the
border-straddling but Pakistan Frontier Corps-controlled bazaar of Angoor Adda (Angoor
Ada) area of South Waziristan.[14] [15]

References
1. Daily Times, [1]
2. Daily Times, [2], September 30, 2005
3. Middlebrook and Millier (pdf file)
4. Pajhwok Afghan News, Independence Day observed in Peshawar, August 19, 2007.
5. Pajhwok Afghan News, Pashtuns on both sides of Pak-Afghan border show opposition to
fencing plan, January 3, 2007.
6. Pajhwok Afghan News, More protests against fencing, January 10, 2007.
7. Pajhwok Afghan News, Fencing plan may defame Pakistan: Fazl, January 10, 2007.
8. Pajhwok Afghan News, Peshawar-based lawyers warn to move SC against fencing,
January 10, 2007.
9. Pajhwok Afghan News, Governors oppose border fencing, January 9, 2007.
10. Pajhwok Afghan News, Protesters flay border fencing, January 7, 2007.
11. Pajhwok Afghan News, Border fencing a conspiracy: Taliban, January 7, 2007.
12. Pajhwok Afghan News, Pakistani forces start fencing: Governor, January 7, 2007.
13. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/07/25-170703.htm
 14. http://news.monstersandcritics.com/southasia/news/article_1293995.php/Clash_erupts_be
tween_Afghan_Pakistani_forces_over_border_fence
15. "Go West, Young Durand Line, Go West", Afghanistanica.com, January 30, 2008

The Wind Blows Another Way at the Durand Line

By Husain Haqqani

The Indian Express, March 15, 2006

Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan are in a downward spiral. First came the
war of words between President Hamid Karzai and General Pervez Musharraf
over who was to blame for the resurgence of the Taliban along the mountainous
Afghan-Pakistan border. Then, the Afghan parliament condemned Musharraf’s
use of undiplomatic language about Karzai. Now, the head of Afghanistan’s
Senate, Hazrat Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, has accused Musharraf and the ISI of
instigating a suicide assassination attempt on Mujaddedi’s life. In between,
Afghanistan demanded Pakistan stop naming its missiles after Afghan heroes
and Pakistan claimed it was planning a fence along their complex 1,810 km
border.

Musharraf and most Pakistani officials blame India for the deterioration in
Islamabad’s ties with Kabul. But Karzai, Mujaddedi and the majority of Afghan
parliamentarians now criticising Pakistani policy do not have a history of close
ties with India. They lived as refugees in Pakistan between ’79 and ’88 when it
served, with US help, as the staging ground for the guerrilla war against the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

India maintained cordial ties with the pro-Communist Kabul regime during that
period. Pakistan’s extensive hospitality for millions of Afghan refugees strained
Pakistani society. But the Afghan Jihad was justified by Pakistan’s establishment
on grounds that it would create goodwill among Afghans and buy Pakistan
influence across its northwestern border for years to come.

How did Pakistan manage to lose the goodwill generated by its support of Afghan
refugees and Mujahideen during their anti-Soviet struggle? The answer can be
found in the near-obsession of Pakistan’s establishment with extending its
influence into Afghanistan. Pakistan should have been content with having
friends in power in Kabul after the fall of the pro-communist regime in ’92.
Instead, its intelligence community adopted the attitude of British officers of the
19th century.

Afghanistan’s frontier with British India was drawn by a British civil servant,
Mortimer Durand, in 1893 and agreed upon by representatives of both
governments. After Pakistan’s independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistani
leaders assumed that Pakistan would inherit the functions of India’s British
government in guiding Afghan policy. But soon after Pakistan’s independence,
Afghanistan voted against Pakistan’s admission to the UN, arguing Afghanistan’s
treaties with British India relating to Afghan borders were no longer valid since a
new country was being created where none existed at the time of these treaties.

Although India publicly did not support the Afghan demand for “Pashtunistan”,
Pakistan’s early leaders could not separate the Afghan questioning of Pakistani
borders from their perception of an Indian grand design against Pakistan. They
wanted to limit Indian influence in Afghanistan to prevent Pakistan from being
“crushed by a sort of pincer movement” involving Afghanistan stirring the ethnic
cauldron in Pakistan and India stepping in to undo the partition of the
subcontinent. Pakistan’s response was a forward policy of encouraging Afghan
Islamists that would subordinate ethnic nationalism to Islamic religious sentiment.

Pakistan’s concern about the lack of depth in its land defences led to the
Pakistani generals’ strategic belief about the fusion of the defence of Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Pakistan’s complicated role in Afghanistan beginning well before
the Soviet invasion of 1979 and through the rise and fall of the Taliban can best
be understood in light of this desire.

Karzai and other Afghan nationalists remain unwilling to accept Pakistan’s vision
of Afghanistan as a subordinate state. Afghanistan maintains lose ties with India
and expects to pursue an independent foreign policy. Pakistan has offended
Afghans in the past with attempting to dictate their policies and by positioning
itself as a major player in a contemporary version of the Great Game. Now,
however, it also runs the risk of upsetting the US, which is militarily present in
Afghanistan and has significant stakes in ensuring its stability.

Since the beginning of 2005, casualties in Afghanistan have been rising. The
Taliban insurgency is weak and not yet as threatening as the challenge in Iraq.
But Afghan insurgents are clearly getting arms, money and training. The Taliban
are also recruiting new members and undertaking bolder attacks such as the one
against Mujaddedi.
Intelligence-led covert operations invariably have unexpected consequences,
often described as “blowback”. Pakistan and Afghanistan must defuse current
tensions and build an open, diplomatic relationship in place of the Great Game
legacy of intrigue and violence. A fence between Afghanistan and Pakistan is
unrealistic, as is the complete separation of the two
countries’ shared history. An American-brokered
accord between Pakistan and Afghanistan to end the
latent dispute over the Durand Line, coupled with
international guarantees to end Pakistan’s meddling
in Afghanistan, might be the basis for durable peace
and friendship between the two Muslim states.
 The Durand Line was demarcated by the British and signed
into a treaty in 1893 with the Afghan ruler Amir Abdur Rehman Khan. The treaty
was to stay in force for a 100-year period. According to Afrasiab Khattak, a
political analyst, the areas from the Khayber Agency Northwards to Chitral,
however, remained un-demarcated.

This disputed land was legally to be returned to Afghanistan in 1993 after the 100
year old Durand Treaty expired, similar to how Hong Kong was returned to
China. Kabul has refused to renew the Durand Line treaty since 1993 when it
expired, Throughout the last nine years, Pakistan has tried to get Afghan
Warlords and Taliban to sign a renewal contract of the Treaty, and thankfully they
didn’t not fall for the treachery of Pakistan. One of the reasons Pakistan faced
problems with the Kabul rulers right from its inception was Kabul's claim over the
North West frontier Province. (NWFP) Kabul never accepted that line or the fact
that the NWFP is part of Pakistan. This was one of the main policy planks used
by President Daoud Khan's government when it tried to foment trouble by
Pashtoons nationalists in the NWFP on the issue of greater Pashtoonistan.

Until this day, the disputed land which rightfully and legally belongs to
Afghanistan, is still recognized as the North-West Frontier Province, NWFP.
Every other province in Pakistan is named by the ethnic group that resides there,
such as Punjab, Sindh, and Balouchistan. But the ethnic Afghans that are forced
under the sovereignty of Pakistan must accept the degrading and purposely
named NWFP.