Historical Roots of Pak-Afghan Mistrust

The statement by Afghan President Office at the conclusion of President Karzai reads: ‘The Pakistani side is expected to take specific and practical steps in accordance with the decisions made during these negotiations.’

President Karzai, who agreed to visit Pakistan after a flurry of diplomatic efforts by Islamabad and nudging by the United States and the United Kingdom, wanted some sureties from Pakistan. These included making stability in Afghanistan, Islamabad’s real priority; releasing rest of the incarcerated Afghan Taliban commanders and using its influence over Afghan Taliban to negotiate peace with Afghan High Peace Council.

Pakistan, according to Sartaj Aziz, succeeded to convince the visiting Afghan president that Pakistan did not have control over Afghan Taliban. It meant Islamabad could not compel the insurgents to negotiate with Afghan High Peace Council. Afghanistan’s charges against Islamabad for supporting Afghan insurgents may be an immediate reason for strained Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, but the tension and mistrust between the two countries have roots in the history.

In recent years, the main complaint of Afghanistan has been that Islamabad is supporting Afghan Taliban with cash and kind due to which Afghanistan remains highly unstable and the global war on terror in the region totally ineffective. President Karzai had stated ‘Pakistan was nourishing ‘snakes’ on its soil.’ However, the Afghan government could not substantiate its charges making it extremely difficult to ascertain the level of substance in them.

On Islamabad’s part, no amount of refutation and justification by its authorities has convinced the World and Afghanistan that the Pakistani soil is not being used against the interest of Afghanistan. An analysis of the present situation between Afghanistan and Pakistan reveals that the reasons of strained relationship have always remained the same.

It has always been at the back of the mind of Pakistani establishment that Afghanistan is an unfriendly country and has always been on the lookout to hurt Pakistan’s interests. The historical irredentist claim of Afghanistan on Pakistani territory has always been cited as the root of mistrust between the two states. Noticeably, no Afghan government ever renounced its one-sided claim on Pakistani territory. Even the Taliban regime, despite under great pressure from Pakistan, did not recognize the Durand Line as the permanent border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This, in a way, supports Islamabad’s contention that it does not have control over the Afghan Taliban.

Gen Zia-ul-Haq (1977-88), after sensing that Afghanistan would never be able to fulfil its revanchist claim by force, thought it adequate to make Afghanistan its ‘strategic depth’ vis-à-vis India. Pakistan attempted this by flaming religious feelings in Afghanistan and the anti-Soviet war came in handy to do so. However, this policy worked in the short-run during the Soviet-Afghan war and, to some extent, afterwards, but it backfired as it was myopic and against the international cannons.

Afghanistan has also stuck to its old claims over territory on our side of the Durand Line without realising fundamental changes in the ground realities. For instance, Pakhtoons are the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan and there are few desirous among them to join Afghanistan. The continued Afghan recalcitrance over the Durand Line issue has also made things difficult for Pakistan.

 So, to allay the mutual mistrust, Pakistan must change its policy of making Afghanistan its strategic depth while Afghanistan must renounce claims over Pakistani territory.

The latest point of friction between Islamabad and Kabul is the manner and nature of peace process in Afghanistan. However, it is unfortunate that the US and its European allies have found Kabul’s stance more credible than that of Pakistan.

In the present tense environment, no meaningful peace process is possible inside Afghanistan and there can be no improvement in the relations between the two states. President Karzai started levelling increasingly serious charges against Pakistan as part of a well-orchestrated strategy. The foremost motive of this strategy is that Karzai is desirous of winning the hearts and minds of Afghans. Pakistan-bashing has been an attractive slogan inside Afghanistan for politicians and rulers to rally public support particularly at a time when they lack legitimacy.

In the 1970s, Afghanistan’s self-imposed president Sardar Daud also resorted to unprecedented anti-Pakistan propaganda and launched the Pakhtoonistan stunt in order to get political legitimacy inside Afghanistan. Daud did so because he had dethroned the legitimate Afghan King Zahir Shah and had usurped state power. So in order to cultivate political constituency and to get legitimacy, he adopted a profoundly anti-Pakistan stance.

Karzai is replicating Daud’s strategy for internal consumption. Karzai would have to relinquish power early next year because under the Afghan constitution, he cannot be elected for the third term. Nevertheless, he wants to be known as a ‘successful’ president and ‘architect of new Afghanistan’ and for that he needs to do something and the soft target, as always, is Pakistan.

On its part, Pakistan has been coming up with plans and strategies to bring peace to the war-ravaged country, but the Afghan rulers never let Islamabad implement these plans effectively. A glaring example can be when, in 2006, Pakistan successfully negotiated a peace plan with Mustapha Zahir Shah, the grandson of late King Zahir Shah which envisaged that Mustapha would play an instrumental role in the newly-launched peace initiative. He would also occupy a key place in the new dispensation comprising all ethnic groups of Afghanistan.