The dispute revolves around the so-called Durand Line, named after a British colonial official, that marks the present day border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan government says the agreement reached between their King Abdur Rahman Khan and British colonial official Sir Henry Mortimer Durand in 1893 was for 100 years and expired in 1993. The Afghans are now asking the United States to renegotiate the border and some Afghan officials also have issued a new map that shows such major Pakistani cities as Peshawar and Quetta in Afghanistan.
The issue has led to several skirmishes between Pakistan and Afghanistan since April this year and has forced the United States to form a tripartite commission to resolve border disputes between its two allies. The commission, which also includes the United States, has already held three meetings and U.S. officials in Kabul say they expect the Durand Line issue also to dominate the fourth meeting, scheduled in the second week of September in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.
Officials in Kabul say in the previous meetings, the U.S. administration made it clear to both sides it has no desire to get involved in renegotiating a deal made more than a 100 years ago between Afghanistan and Britain.
"The best we can do is to help the two countries reposition small border posts here and there but we are not there to rewrite the history," a senior U.S. official told United Press International.
In its last meeting, the tripartite commission asked its sub-committee to continue with deliberations on proposals to sort out disputes over some border posts. The commission also established a hotline between Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent further armed clashes between the two countries. The hotline also allows the two U.S. allies to stay in touch with U.S. military officials based in the region.
But diplomatic sources in Kabul say Afghanistan wants more. The sources say Kabul has officially asked the United States to use its influence on Pakistan to force it to redraw the Durand Line. Islamabad, however, has already rejected this demand saying the line is a settled issue, which it has no desire to reopen.
Informally, Pakistani officials are believed to have complained to the United States that India is using its influence on the Northern Alliance, which dominates the present government in Kabul and has close ties to New Delhi, to revive an old and settled issue. The Indians, the Pakistanis complain, used the same strategy in the 1960s and 1970s to create differences between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
India denies this charges and blames Pakistan for dragging New Delhi into a dispute it has nothing to do with. But in the past, Indian officials have described the Durand Land as an issue left unsettled by the British when they left the subcontinent in 1947; New Delhi has supported the Afghan position.
Afghanistan, however, appears determined to renegotiate the Durand Line. In the last meeting of the tripartite commission, they repeatedly brought up the issue, which prevented the commission from making unanimous recommendations for resolving border disputes, diplomatic sources said.
The sources said that during the meeting, Afghans also presented a copy of the original 1893 agreement, which they acquired from Britain, to prove the deal was valid only for 100 years and has already expired. The Afghan government has also demanded that the tripartite commission be empowered to redraw the line.
The commission, formed in April, was mandated to suggest ways and means to the three governments instead of it coming up with solutions. The sources said the Afghan government now wants the mandate of the commission expanded to make it a decision-making body.
In the past, Afghans have demanded that Pakistan's North West Frontier and Baluchistan Provinces either merge with Afghanistan or form a new state, Pashtunistan, allied with Afghanistan. For several decades, Afghanistan, with active help from the former Soviet Union and India, supported separatist groups in Baluchistan who were fighting a guerrilla war against the central government in Islamabad. They also supported political groups in NWFP demanding secession from Pakistan.
The issue, however, was obscured when Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and occupied the country. Millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan and launched an armed resistance, with the help of the United States and Pakistan. When the mujahedin, and later the Taliban, took over Kabul after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, they ignored the issue of Pashtunistan in return for good relations with Pakistan. Officials in Islamabad say this was one of the reasons they supported the Taliban.
After the defeat of the Taliban forces two years ago, the Northern Alliance, which never enjoyed good relations with Pakistan, returned to Kabul as the dominant group in the new government. Officials in Islamabad say they always feared that a government dominated by the Northern Alliance would revive the Durand Land dispute.
"We will not be surprised if Pashtunistan reappears as an issue again," said a senior Pakistani diplomat.
Given the historical bitterness between Afghanistan and Pakistan over this issue, diplomatic sources in Kabul say the United States will find it very difficult to keep its two allies away from each other.
"With an increase in Russian and Indian influence in Afghanistan, we fear that Islamabad's relations with Kabul will further deteriorate," said a senior Western diplomat.
India sees Pakistan as its major foe in the region and the two countries have fought three wars since independence in 1947. Russia holds Pakistan responsible for the insurgency in the 1980s that led to the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors, which include the newly independent Muslim states of the former Soviet Union, also established close ties with the Northern Alliance when the anti-Taliban force was fighting to oust the militia. They too hold Pakistan responsible for the rise of the Taliban movement, which stirred religious insurgency in their own Muslim populations, and would not want Pakistan to regain influence in Afghanistan.
In the presence of so many external supporters, the Afghan government is under no pressure to improve its relations with Pakistan in the near future. Diplomatic observers say only the United States has been urging Afghanistan to maintain friendly ties with Pakistan but they may not succeed in doing so, adding to the region's imbroglio