• “The new Afghan government will announce its position on this issue.
  
• The fencing has separated people and divided families.
  
• We want to create a secure and peaceful environment on the border so there is no need to create barriers.
• The issue has sowed distrust between Afghans and Pakistan for decades, and is a potential flashpoint in relations between the Taliban and Pakistan.
  

• The Durand Line 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.
• The agreement demarcating what became known as the Durand Line was signed on November 12, 1893 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.
• He was essentially a British puppet. 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, according to Rajiv Dogra , author of Durand’s Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart, Durand drew on the spot on a small map of Afghanistan during his negotiations with the Amir.

Cross-border tensions

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. Afghanistan was the only country to vote against Pakistan joining the United Nations in 1947.

‘Pashtunistan’ — an independent country of the Pashtuns — was a demand made by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan at the time of Partition, although he later resigned himself to the reality of Partition. 

Source: Indian Express