Karzai is gradually making his intentions clear; his statement that Kabul will never recognise Durand Line alongside his call on the Taliban to attack Pakistan explains why relations between the two counties remain bedevilled.
The Durand Line is the international boundary chalked out about more than a century ago, to which all agree, except various belligerent Afghan regimes who have used it as a political football, from time to time, when it serves their purpose. Paradoxically, when it is politically appropriate, the same governments would themselves be seen agreeing to the demarcation. It is unfortunate that once again the non-issue is being brought into focus for no reason at all. The statement makes it clear why Afghanistan has been fiercely against Pakistani check-posts along the border areas; Kabul, it turns out is banking on the militant groups that it is now openly urging to launch attacks across the border. With checkpoint and surveillance along the sensitive areas that kind of infiltration would be stalled, hence reason why such a strong opposition has been registered.
The realisation that militancy of the sort or the Taliban for that matter are a common enemy who have carried out a spate of mass-casualty attacks on either side of the Durand line ought to sink in. And with statements of support such as on one coming out from Karzai, these groups would only gain more courage and sympathizers to keep the innocent under a pall of gloom, retrogression and terrorism.
Afghanistan has been an ungrateful neighbour; Islamabad’s support to it on a number of fronts, diplomatic as well as economic has been sneezed at. If this is how it keeps up with its hostility mistaking flexibility for a weakness, it would end up losing the goodwill. Ruses such as trying to make an issue out of Durand Line, is purely nonsensical as much as it is a waste of time and energy. Good neighbours are those who understand that ‘good fences make good neighbours.’