Taliban also drove the army

Kabul: The years-old Durand Line dispute between the two countries has resurfaced with the Taliban preventing Pakistani forces from building fencing and military posts on the Afghanistan border. Pakistan hoped that the issue had been resolved during the Taliban regime. The Taliban stopped the construction of a fencing and military post by the Pakistani army in the Nimroz province of Afghanistan. Eyewitnesses living in the border district say that the Pakistani army had entered 15 kilometers into the Afghanistan border and was getting construction done. According to a report, the Pakistani army was trying to build a military post in Chahar Burjak district in Nimroz province of Afghanistan. Pakistan has not yet commented on the issue.

It is noteworthy that a week ago on December 22, the provincial chief of the Taliban’s Directorate General of Intelligence had stopped the fencing by the Pakistani army in East Nangarhar.

The International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS) said that it is a burning dispute that causes tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The 2,600-km-long Durand Line remains a contentious issue between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Ashraf Ghani government had objected to the fencing of the border and the Afghan side even then tried to prevent Pakistan from fencing.

However, then Pakistan was successful. Pakistani media reports say that 90 percent of the border with Pakistan is fenced. “Fencing is part of the border mechanism, which Pakistan has been working on for years not only to control the movement of people but also to prevent terrorists from moving freely across the border,” IFFRAS said. According to Tank, the real reason for Pakistan fencing the border is to divide the Pashtuns.

It is known that the people of the Pashtun ethnic community reside on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border. They make up 42 percent of the population in Afghanistan. Here, Pashtuns constitute 25 percent of the population in Pakistan. ThinkThank argued that Pakistan has done the work of dividing these people by building a fence on the border. IFFRAS said, “Pakistan recognizes the Durand Line, while Afghanistan has been refusing to recognize it in the past and in the present.”