Pakistan to fence, mine border with Afghanistan

[Bull]

Bull why in the hell would anyone be ashamed? Its an immoral war that is being waged against the Afghans. Who in the world gave the US the right to invade Afghanistan? And what if Pashtuns are aiding others in Afghanistan? This is all a reality of the situation and should have been thought about by that **** for brains idiot sitting in the white house.

Blain,
i agree totally with your view point. How ever i guess you missed my point. Even after the flawed adventure in Iraq, you still see Bush and his team backing up the plan.

Countries do ugly things covertly and overtly for their own benefits. Going public admitting its own flaws and over enthusiasticllay doing it is not a advisable thing.

I wouldnt like my state of head to go about saying that.

 

[blain2]

Blain,
i agree totally with your view point. How ever i guess you missed my point. Even after the flawed adventure in Iraq, you still see Bush and his team backing up the plan.

Countries do ugly things covertly and overtly for their own benefits. Going public admitting its own flaws and over enthusiasticllay doing it is not a advisable thing.

I wouldnt like my state of head to go about saying that.

Bush and his team back-up the plan because him and his war party are a bunch of immoral morons who could care less about the lives of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis lost because this redneck asshole of a president had suspicions about a WMD program in Iraq and then decided to attack another country because they happened to host a few tents with nutty Arabs in them.
There were very many other ways to go about getting to AQ in Afghanistan instead of turning a country in bronze age into one in the stone age.

Taking the line that you propose here, maybe Musharraf should do an ostritch here by constantly denying that nobody is going back and forth. We have troops dying fighting some of the very people who are going back and forth into Afghanistan so I do not think it does Pakistan or GoP any good to simply deny this. It took guts to take some ownership (which leaders do in tough situation) of the existing problem across the Pakistan-Afghan border, but by taking partial responsibility, Musharraf has put considerable onus on the incompetent Karzai govt and his NATO and US backers...already there are voices coming from the ISAF camp of considerable Pakistani assistance in operations and the need to beef up border security on the Afghan side by sending 3 additional bns of NATO troops...so all in all not a bad approach taken by Musharraf. Kudos to him for carefully treading through such murky times.

 

[Janbaz]

Britain says fencing border will help stop illegal crossings

* Beckett rules out talks with Taliban
* Says two-state formula only solution to ME conflict
* Iran negotiations still an option

By Irfan Ghauri

ISLAMABAD: British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett on Tuesday voiced support for Pakistan’s plans to build a fence on the Pak-Afghan border, saying it would hinder unwanted movement.

Britain cannot recommend what Pakistan should do to stop cross-border infiltration, but is ready to cooperate with Islamabad in implementing its decisions to tighten security at the border, Beckett said in a lecture to officers being trained in the Foreign Service Academy.

“It is not my job to recommend to Pakistan how to secure the border. It will be important what Pakistan suggests. I know they (Pakistan) are doing it and we are ready to offer our cooperation,” she said.

Beckett said linking international aid with Pakistan’s success in controlling unwanted movement across the porous border would not serve Britain’s cause of ensuring better prospects for the poor.

She said levelling allegations on cross-border movement was fruitless and there was a need for “exemplary cooperation” between all stakeholders to secure the Pak-Afghan border.

To a query about Al Qaeda’s alleged re-grouping in the region, she said, “If it is true, it will be a matter of considerable concern.” She ruled out dialogue with militant Taliban but added that those who were not involved in violence could be invited to negotiations.

She said Afghanistan had been destroyed by two decades of war and it would take at least that long to restore normalcy. “The international community will never be able to clean the slate of what it did and what it did not do in the early 1990s. With Soviet forces gone, we could have put together the sort of international effort that we have on the ground today,” she said.

Beckett said troops in Afghanistan were vital to bring security but other measures like training judges and police and building institutions were also needed to achieve durable peace.

She said terrorists had no interest in the nationality or religion of their victims, just as they had no interest in peace or in resolving conflicts. Closer cooperation in countering radical elements would help thwart terrorist attacks, she said.

She said the UK was reducing its troops in Iraq, but added that its “military presence will remain there till 2008”. She said a failed Iraq would pose as great a risk to international security as Afghanistan when it was controlled by the Taliban and provided a secure base for Al Qaeda. To a question, she said the only durable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict one that envisaged two states living side by side, recognising each other.

Beckett said every effort had been made to tackle the Iranian nuclear issue through negotiations, but Iran had been adamant. She said no one wished to impose sanctions on Iran and negotiations were still an option.

Daily Times.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\28\story_28-2-2007_pg1_5

 

[Janbaz]

Canada to offer mining alternate

ISLAMABAD (APP) - Canada will suggest Pakistan alternatives to mining its border with Afghanistan, in light of political and technical requisites, Canadian Deputy High Commissioner Stuart Hughes said on Thursday.
"It (proposals) is going to be a mix of political and technical stuff a combination of things so as to make the idea of landmines redundant," the Canadian diplomat said at a seminar on '1997-2007:Ten years of Mine Ban Treaty, A success in progress', organized by Sustainable Peace And Development Organization (SPADO) here. Stuart Hughes said a Canadian inter-agency team in its recent visit to Pakistan had held meetings with relevant officials and visited Chaman border and refugee camps.
It would send proposals in light of the region's specific requirements. He said Canada considered anti-personnel mines as a global problem.
He mentioned the instrumental role of Canadian civil society and the government in achieving Ottawa Convention to ban landmines, their production and transfer, to which 40 countries had ratified by September 1998. Regarding the current presence of Canadian troops in Afghanistan and in Pakistan during earthquake, Stuart Hughes rejected any ulterior motives and said it was for the humanitarian cause. "We have no imperial ambitions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, rather our presence has been for humanitarian purpose."
He further said in Pakistan, about 200 Canadian troops contributed to relief work including provision of clean drinking water, setting up of filtration plants and field hospitals in quake-hit areas. Similarly in Afghanistan, he said Canada through its troops wanted the Afghan people to maintain an atmosphere conducive to attain sustainable economic development.
Speaking on the occasion, Senator Akram Zaki termed anti-personnel mines as "indiscriminate killers" - that do not discriminate between a combatant and a non-combatant, child or adult, in times of war or during peace.
Raza Shah Khan, Executive Director SPADO said more than 80 countries were affected landmines and unexploded ordnance.
He urged the international community to launch a campaign against anti-personnel landmines, which caused 15,000- 20,000 new casualties each year.

The Nation.
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/mar-2007/2/index11.php

 

[Neo]

Afghanistan says Pakistan has started fencing border :thumbsup:

KABUL (AFP) - Pakistan has started fencing parts of its border with Afghanistan, the Afghan defence ministry said Tuesday as the government raised objections, saying the unmarked frontier was disputed.

Pakistan officials denied they had done any fencing, but said work was set to begin.

Visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher said meanwhile efforts to control the movement of militants across the rugged border should be agreed by all sides.

"According to Afghan military intelligence, they have started fencing the border in an area opposite to Barmal," defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.

Barmal is in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province. President Pervez Musharraf said in February Pakistan would fence 35 kilometres (22 miles) of its northwestern border to restrict the movement of Taliban militants.

"The Islamic government of Afghanistan strongly opposes this," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It also denied that the erection of barbed-wire fencing on parts of the 2,500-kilometre (1,500-mile) border would do much to prevent militants trained and equipped in Pakistan from crossing over to carry out attacks.

"This won't help the war on terrorism," the ministry said. "The other reality is that the (current) border is not acceptable to both countries ... so here the question is in which country this barbed wire would be erected."

Afghan officials still refer to the border as the Durand Line, its name when it was drawn up in 1893 by British India, which once included Pakistan, to divide powerful ethnic Pashtun tribes.

"We should bear in mind that in most areas, the so-called Durand Line is not clear," the defence ministry said separately. A fence in the area would separate tribes and families living on either side, it added.

But Pakistan's foreign ministry said the border between the two countries was not in question.

"There is an international border between the two countries and there should be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind about that," ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.

"When we say we will not allow our territory to be used for militancy in Afghanistan we are very serious," she said.

"Our decision to fence some areas on our side of the international border reflects our determination not to allow our soil to be used against Afghanistan."

Musharraf has also dismissed the Afghan concerns, saying the frontier is "very, very clear" and that "Pakistan will never, never allow any change of that border."

A Pakistan security official in Islamabad strongly denied that any fencing had taken place, but said areas were being identified and some work was about to start.

He said some areas would be fenced to "divert the people towards authorised routes and restrict the movement of miscreants."

Boucher, who was in Afghanistan for talks with officials, said he hoped to raise the issue in Pakistan this week.

"The US, NATO, Pakistan, Afghanistan need to work together to control the border area and we need to discuss these things...if various steps can be effective, whether they can be acceptable to both sides," he told reporters.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070313/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrest_070313185033

 

[Spring Onion]

Afghanistan says Pakistan has started fencing border :thumbsup:

He said some areas would be fenced to "divert the people towards authorised routes and restrict the movement of miscreants."

even that is great. I say tax them for movement of goods also from our side

 

[Cheetah786]

KABUL, March 13: Pakistan has started fencing parts of its western border, the Afghan defence ministry said on Tuesday as the government raised objections saying the unmarked frontier was disputed.

Pakistan officials denied they had done any fencing but said work was set to begin.

“According to Afghan military intelligence, they have started fencing the border in an area opposite to Barmal,” defence ministry spokesman Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi said. Barmal is in Paktika province.

“We should bear in mind that in most areas, the so-called Durand Line is not clear,” the ministry said. A fence in the area would separate tribes and families living on either side, it added. But Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the border between the two countries was not in question.

“There is an international border between the two countries and there should be absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind about that,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said.

“When we say we will not allow our territory to be used for militancy in Afghanistan we are very serious,” she said.

“Our decision to fence some areas on our side of the international border reflects our determination not to allow our soil to be used against Afghanistan.”

A Pakistan security official denied that any fencing had taken place but added that reconnaissance work was in progress.

“Some stores had been moved forward and areas are being identified and the work was about to start at some places,” he said.

He said fencing would be done in the “areas of concern to divert the people towards authorised routes and restrict the movement of miscreants”.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher, who was in Afghanistan, said efforts to control the movement of militants across the border should be agreed by all sides.

Mr Boucher said he hoped to raise the issue in Pakistan this week. “The US, Nato, Pakistan and Afghanistan need to work together,” he told reporters.—AFP
:flag: :flag:

 

[EagleEyes]

even that is great. I say tax them for movement of goods also from our side

That will not help either side. Afghanistan will likely to stop the import as it will not be able to pay high prices.

 

[Cheetah786]

That will not help either side. Afghanistan will likely to stop the import as it will not be able to pay high prices.

Webby you have any idea the amount of smuggled goods out of Afghanistan into Pakistan.how much these smuggled goods hurt our economy.on any given day.this will also help with the drugs that are smuggled into Pakistan and don't forget the firearms.

 

[Neo]

I don't have the link anymore but the amount is in billions of dollars! Afghan narcotic industry for one is worth more than $4-6 billion, much of it is smuggled via Pakistan.

Afghans are also hurting our economy...transport, construction, chai and pan shops, sabzi mandi's all are flooded with afghans.

 

[Neo]

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Why shouldn’t Pakistan fence the Durand Line?

Afghanistan has protested Pakistan’s attempt to fence its border with Afghanistan. The basis of the protest is Kabul’s position that the unmarked frontier is disputed. The complaint was made to the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Richard Boucher, who lamely responded that “efforts to control the movement of militants across the rugged border should be agreed by all sides”.

The Afghan intelligence agency, not always to be relied upon as it is often swayed by emotion rather than reason, says that Pakistan has started fencing the border in an area opposite to Barmal in the eastern Paktika province. This might well be true because President General Pervez Musharraf said in February that Pakistan would fence 35 kilometres of its northwestern border to restrict the movement of Taliban militants. The fencing relates to only 35 km and not to the whole 2,500 km that is described as the Durand Line.

The Kabul government has stressed its political position before the practicalities of blocking suicide-bombers and terrorists from going into Afghanistan. It has denied that the “erection of barbed-wire fencing on parts of the border would do much to prevent militants trained and equipped in Pakistan from crossing over to carry out attacks”. It has gone back to the position that the frontier was unfairly drawn up in 1893 by British India “to divide powerful ethnic Pashtun tribes”.

On the other hand, a Pakistani security official has strongly denied that any fencing has so far taken place. But, he insisted, selective fencing would be done to “divert the people towards authorised routes and restrict the movement of miscreants”. From the Pakistan side, the objective is to fence in order to block movement in certain areas, which jibes with the goal set for itself by the NATO forces in Afghanistan, which is a little hesitant over the idea of booby-trapping the fence with mines, a policy not popular with the people in Europe.

Kabul is behaving predictably as the lesser revisionist state challenging the bigger status quo state by rejecting the Durand Line. No government in Kabul — always dominated by Pushtun leaders — has accepted the Durand Line. That doesn’t mean that their objection is based on the defects of demarcation of the frontier on the ground. It means annexation of the land of the Pushtuns inside Pakistan at the maximum and the Tribal Areas of Pakistan at the minimum. Pakistan has always known this but has never given it too much attention in the past, given the fact that Afghanistan was too weak militarily to call Pakistan to account on the matter.

Indeed, Pakistan did not look to its western border for security. It faced eastwards as a revisionist state vis-à-vis India and fought wars with India on the issue whenever it was strong enough militarily to do so. But India, as the status quo power, sided with Afghanistan — and in times of internal Afghan trouble, with the opposition in Afghanistan — to make Pakistan realise that Pakistan too was a status quo power vis-à-vis Afghanistan. India fenced the border with Pakistan because Pakistan had accepted it, in the words of Jinnah, as a “moth-eaten Pakistan”.

Afghanistan’s stance is contradictory and differs from the covert stance of Pakistan when it objected to the fencing and mining of Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir by India. (It is always the status quo power that fences the border.) Pakistan was sending infiltrators into the Indian-administered Kashmir and did not want any obstacles in the way. In the case of Afghanistan, that is not the problem. It is Afghanistan which complains that Pakistan is sending its infiltrators into Afghanistan. Therefore it should normally be interested in Pakistan’s effort to partially fence the border to remove the Afghan complaint.

There is much inflamed imagination among the Pushtun elements in the Kabul government. Opposition to fencing is going to give Pakistan a good defence against the Kabul accusation of infiltration. Pakistan’s view that fencing will help in cutting off the cross-border invaders appeals to the NATO forces, at least as a removal of Pakistan’s “excuses”. Speaking legally, Kabul may disagree with the demarcation of the Durand Line but it cannot object to the idea of the Durand Line. It indirectly refused to accept the Durand Line when it refused to vote in favour of Pakistan’s membership to the United Nations in 1947; but it accepted the Durand Line when it cast a vote of acceptance a few days later.

Pakistan’s real problem, however, is not the Durand Line and its fencing. It is its loosening hold over the population that lives in its own Tribal Areas. Over the years they have stopped integrating economically and politically with the rest of the country and today challenge the map of Pakistan from within. *

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\15\story_15-3-2007_pg3_1

 

[Neo]

Pakistan builds anti-Taliban fence on Afghan border

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistan has erected the first section of a controversial fence on the Afghan border, severing a key corridor used by Taliban militants, the chief military spokesman said Thursday.

The building of the barbed wire anti-insurgent fence however provoked anger from Kabul, which says it does not recognise the porous frontier between the two pivotal allies in the US-led "war on terror."

"We have completed 20 kilometres (12 miles) of fencing in North Waziristan's Lwara Mundi area," spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP in an interview at his office in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

"This is that difficult part where most militants reportedly were crossing over."

Another 15-kilometre stretch would soon be fenced in the neighbouring South Waziristan tribal area, Arshad said. The army has also deployed extra troops and increased patrols in the area, which faces southeastern Afghanistan.

Lwara Mundi is tiny and remote settlement located in a gap between two mountain ranges through which Arshad said militants were driving vehicles and heavy weapons.

North and South Waziristan and other Pakistani tribal areas along the rugged border have been branded by US and

NATO officials as havens for Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents launching attacks into Afghanistan.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf formally announced plans in February to build a fence along parts of the frontier. He said plans to mine it had been postponed after international criticism.

More than 1,000 people have died in Taliban-related violence in Afghanistan this year including around 50 foreign soldiers. The majority of the bloodshed has been in provinces bordering Pakistan.

But Kabul does not recognise the international border first drawn up by colonial Britain in 1893 and wrote to

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon earlier this year to express "deep concern" over the fencing plans.

Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said Thursday that "the Afghan government is against fencing the border. It separates families and people living on both sides."

Arshad angrily rejected Kabul's objections, saying that the fencing was done on Pakistani soil and "we do not need to ask anybody how we should manage our borders."

"In any case ordinary tribesmen are not suppose to use unauthorised routes to cross the border," he said. "There are designated routes for them and there is no barbed wire over there."

He said coalition troops operating across the border had welcomed Pakistan's measures to tighten border controls.

Hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants fled to Pakistan's tribal regions after US-led forces ousted the fundamentalist Taliban regime in late 2001 following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

US Vice President

Dick Cheney said during a visit to Pakistan in February that Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network has regrouped in the tribal belt and was planning fresh attacks on Western targets.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070510/wl_sthasia_afp/pakistanafghanistan_070510140709

 

[Neo]

Pakistan urges US for more funds for border fencing

Islamabad, May 18 : The United States is giving serious consideration to a Pakistan demand for more funds for fencing and mining of its border with Afghanistan.

U.S. Special envoy Ambassador Ronald Neumann is said to have conveyed this view to National Security Adviser Tariq Aziz and the Prime Minister's Adviser on Federally Administrated Tribal Areas Sahibzada Imtiaz during their talks here.

Sources said Neumann was told that it would be too much to expect Pakistan to control the over 2,000-kilometre-long Pakistan-Afghanistan border on its own and that too without fencing or mining the most-used crossing points.

Neumann promised more US financial and technical assistance for strengthening border control but urged the Pakistani officials to take Kabul's objections into account and Nato and allied forces into confidence on its fencing project.

Sources said that the US envoy was also told that Pakistan has already fenced its border at about eight points along Pak-Afghan border and some more important areas needed to be fenced.

Sources said that multi-pronged development strategy for Federally Administrated Tribal Areas envisioned improvement in the security environment by having well-trained and organised levies forces at the disposal of the political administration.

Three agencies - Bajaur, Kurrum and Orakzai -have a Levies force, which is responsible for the maintenance of law and order.

The force has now been extended to other agencies and Lakki Frontier Region.

http://www.newkerala.com/news5.php?action=fullnews&id=30849