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What is Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan? Why do Afghans refuse to consider it as border?
The use of word “border” in Qatar's ceasefire statement upset the Afghan officials, prompting the latter to revise the statement.
The recent flare-up between Pakistan and Afghanistan has brought in limelight the Durand Line, boundary between the two countries. The mention of Durand Line as “border” in the ceasefire statement released by Qatar reportedly upset the Afghan officials, prompting the Qatar to issue a revised statement.
In an earlier statement, Qatar said, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the State of Qatar's hope that this important step will contribute to ending tensions on the border between the two brotherly countries and form a solid foundation for sustainable peace in the region.”
Also read: Pakistan, Afghanistan agree to 'immediate ceasefire' says Qatar after fresh strikes | Top points
However, the statement was revised to remove the phrase "on the border between the two brotherly countries" and said, ""The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the State of Qatar's hope that this important step will contribute to ending tensions between the two brotherly countries and form a solid foundation for sustainable peace in the region."
What is Durand Line?
The boundary line was established in the Hindu Kush in 1893 that connected Afghanistan and British India via tribal lands.
It is a legacy of the 19th-century Great Game between the Russian and British empires in which Afghanistan was used as a buffer by the British against a feared Russian expansionism to its east.
In 1893, the agreement demarcating what became known as the Durand Line was signed between the British civil servant Sir Henry Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman, then the Afghan ruler.
Abdur Rahman became king in 1880, two years after the end of the Second Afghan War, in which the British took control of several areas that were part of the Afghan kingdom. His agreement with Durand demarcated the limits of his and British India's "spheres of influence" on the Afghan "frontier" with India.
The seven-clause agreement recognised a 2,670-km line, which stretches from the border with China to Afghanistan's border with Iran.
With independence in 1947, Pakistan inherited the Durand Line, and with it also the Pashtun rejection of the line and Afghanistan's refusal to recognise it.
Why was Afghanistan upset over “border”?
While Islamabad recognises Durand Line as the international border, Afghanistan refuses to do so. Successive Afghan governments, including the Taliban, have dubbed it an artificial division that splits Pashtun tribal lands that undermines the Afghan sovereignty.
In the recent years, the border line has been a flashpoint between the two countries with Islamabad fencing it and Afghan guards tearing down parts of it. While Afghans reject the line as a “colonial relic”, it is a matter of territorial integrity for Pakistan.
In a paper, Afghan scholar Bijan Omrani says that Durand Line has been blamed for the instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “Indeed, there are those who blame the Durand line not just for terrorism and other problems of instability in Pakistan, but even for the terrorist attacks we suffered in London in July 2005, tracing their origins all the way back to the tribal agencies of North-West Pakistan,” he writes.
(With inputs from agencies)
