ISLAMABAD – In a surprise former Afghan president Hamid Karzai termsAfghanistan Relations with Pakistan more important than India.
As neighbours, AfghanistanlinkandPakistan share close ethnic, linguistic, religious and economic ties, buttheir relationship is marred by military-devised interventionist policiesbased on perceived national security interests.
Afghanistan’s former President Hamid Karzai reflected on the importance ofgood relations between the two countries during a conversation at the finalday of Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi on Thursday.
Talking about the bordering countries, Karzai said that Afghanistan’srelations with Iran and Pakistan are consequential and hence more important.
“Pakistan has the greatest impact. So peace in Afghanistan is dependent onhow we evolve our relation with Pakistan.
We want the best of relations with them. We have the issue of the DurandLine (border) with them, but it has not been used by Afghanistan to causewars or conflicts or other forms of disability with Pakistan. Afghanistancannot be peaceful or prosperous without the best of relations withPakistan,” he said.
Pakistan is building a massive fence along the Afghanistan border becauseof the security situation in the region. The unilateral military-ledconstruction programme, to install a pair of nearly three-metre-highchicken wire fences, topped with barbed wire, along the nearly 2,600-kmborder (Durand Line) has spurred criticism from Afghanistan.
Pakistanlinkhasdismissed the objections and maintains the boundary with Afghanistan is aninternationally recognised border between the two countries. The tensionsbetween the two countries have often triggered border skirmishes betweensecurity forces.
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Admitting that relationships are not good right now between the borderingneighbours, Karzai said they need to improve.
“India is the greatest friend of Afghanistan… but the impact that Pakistancan make is much greater than any other country. We need to promote thisrelationship with Pakistan. I don’t know how, but we need to.
|The conflict between India and Pakistan has affected us tremendously, andwe tried to balance it out. We want to be best friends with India, but ourfriendship is not going to stop us from being best brothers and friendswith Pakistan,” he said.
Pakistan has claimed it has 2.7 million Afghanlinkrefugees,and Islamabad is fencing the border because of the allegations thatfighters are going from Pakistan.
The Durand Line is the 1,400 mile-long border between Afghanistan andPakistan, established in 1893 following an agreement between Sir MortimerDurand, a representative of British India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, the Amirof Afghanistan, Sputnik has reported.
