A senior leader of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Senator Raza Rabbani, has on Friday questioned the government’s policy of supporting the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan, asking why the government was in haste to support them when the Taliban did "not even recognize the border". His comment came amid the increasing border tension between the two countries. 

Speaking in the Senate, Rabbani asked Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to take parliament into confidence about a recent incident in which Taliban fighters in Afghanistan had reportedly barred Pakistan's security forces from fencing the border, called the Durand Line - known as "lines in the sand" that distinguished then British India from Afghanistan and was drawn by then British foreign secretary for India, Sir Mortimer Durand, by arm-twisting the then Afghan amir. The Line sliced through the land of Pashtun-speaking Pathans who, according to diplomat-historian Rajiv Dogra "believe they live in a space called 'Pashtunistan', which lies on both sides of what Durand called a Line".

"The traditional Pathan life was disrupted and in many cases the line ran right through the middle of houses, dividing brother from brother," wrote Dogra in his book "Durand's Curse - A Line Across the Pathan Heart".

Local media in both Afghanistan and Pakistan reported clashes between Afghan Taliban fighters and Pakistani security personnel. 

After the regime change in Afghanistan in August, Pakistan has emerged as the key backer of the Taliban regime which remains internationally isolated. However, the new Taliban-led government has not yet recognized the Durand Line, which remains the internationally recognized border between the two countries. 

Pakistan, which shares an almost 2,600 km long border with Afghanistan, has in recent years fenced most of the border. However, no Afghan rulers, including the Taliban, have ever accepted the Durand Line. 

In response to the recent clashes, Taliban’s defense ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazmi confirmed that the Taliban forces had stopped the Pakistani military from erecting what he termed an “illegal” border fence along with the eastern province of Nangarhar on Sunday.

"They are not ready to recognize the border, so why are we moving forward?" Rabbani asked the government. The senator further expressed alarm over reports that the Afghan Taliban hosting the leaders of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a banned group responsible for killings over 10,000 Pakistani nationals. 
  
He said the Afghan Taliban’s move sheltering TTP leaders “could possibly fuel terrorism in Pakistan". Interestingly, the government had recently initiated talks with the TTP, mediated by the Haqqani Network, one of the most powerful Pakistan-backed factions of the Afghan Taliban. However, talks seem to have failed after the TTP announced on 9 December that they were resuming attacks on the Pakistan security forces. 

"On what terms is the state talking about a ceasefire with the banned group?" Senator Rabbani, who has been earlier the chairman of Senate, asked the government.  

For over a decade, the Pakistani government had accused the erstwhile US-backed Afghan government of sheltering the TTP leaders, who attacked the Pakistan forces. In fact, its powerful military and intelligence agency ISI had for two decades provided covert support to the Afghan Taliban in overthrowing that government. 

(SAM)