The Durand Line – the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan – is in the news again after Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told Afghanistan’s media outlet, in an exclusive interview that it is an “international border”.
The Afghan journalist asked him whether the Durand Line was a “recognized border”. To this, the foreign minister said, “I think if we want to move ahead and sort of coexist as good neighbours that we desire then I think let’s accept the international border.”
The minister said he feels no need to discuss the border issue with the Afghan authorities, because whether they accept it or not but “that’s the international border”. The Durand Line was drawn in 1893 as a result of an agreement between the then British Empire and Afghan ruler Abdur Rehman Khan.
It came into existence because the British authorities were afraid of the Russian Empire’s ambitions in the region. The British Empire wanted to keep Afghanistan an independent country that would keep other armies away from the British-controlled areas in the region.
The Durand Line issue has continued to complicate the unpredictable nature of the Afghan-Pakistani relationship since the birth of Pakistan. The Durand Line was accepted by all Afghan rulers as an internationally recognized border but something changed after Pakistan came into being in 1947.
After the founding of Pakistan in 1947, Afghanistan demanded that Pashtuns living on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line be given the right to self-determination. However, the demand was refused. In response, the Afghan government then began to ignore the Durand Line and instead assert claims over territories that lay between the line and the Indus River.
The current Afghan Vice-President Amrullah Saleh said last year that “Peshawar used be the winter capital of Afghanistan”. No one should expect us to “gift” it for free, he was quoted as saying.
Similar views were expressed by former Afghan president Hamid Karzai in 2017, when he said Pakistan had “no legal authority to dictate terms on the Durand Line”. In 2015, US Department of State spokesperson John Kirby had told reporters that the Durand Line is a recognized border.
So Pakistan’s position on the Durand Line, as described by FM Qureshi, is not going to change. The country has already fenced 90 percent of the 2,640km border and it won’t move away from its position.
