In Afghanistan, a disputed view of border
KABUL — It is perhaps a measure of the growing anxiety in Afghanistan that a U.S. envoy’s seemingly innocuous comments about a border first laid down in the 19th century could provoke a week of defiant missives from Afghan officials and fearful murmurings about conspiracies being hatched in Washington and Islamabad.
Ahmed Barakzai, a Kabul jeweler, summed it up well: With the United States’ departure looming, Afghans “know they are entering a dangerous time,” he said between bites of fish at a crowded restaurant. The men around him all nodded.
The “issue of the line,” as he called the border, may be minor to the rest of the world. But it “shows us we have friends who we cannot trust,” said Barakzai, 43. Everyone listening knew he meant the United States, and they kept nodding.
The border, of course, is no simple boundary: It is the Durand Line, named for the British
colonial official who drew it up to separate Imperial Britain’s Indian possessions from Afghanistan — dividing traditionally Pashtun lands between Afghanistan and what would later become Pakistan. To the world at large today, the line, however contentious, is official.
Just don’t say as much to Afghans. Ambassador Marc Grossman, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, learned this the hard way last week when asked by an Afghan television reporter whether the U.S. agreed that “the lands beyond this border, the Durand Line, are the lands of Afghanistan.”
Grossman’s answer — “the border is the international border” — has been U.S. policy for decades. Afghanistan’s claim to a large chunk of northwestern Pakistan, which it believes the British stole, is taken seriously only in Afghanistan. So Grossman moved on, segueing into the need for more regional cooperation — diplomat-speak for better ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
If only it were that easy. Grossman’s comments quickly became headline news in Afghanistan, and remained so for days. The Foreign Ministry, which knew Grossman had said nothing new, nonetheless jumped on the comments, calling Washington’s position “irrelevant.”
“The status of the Durand Line is a matter of historic importance for the Afghan people,” it said in a statement.
President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, also expressed pique in a message marking Eid al Adha, the Islamic holiday that began Friday. “May almighty God bring peace, security and unity to Afghanistan, particularly to both sides of the Durand Line,” the spokesman’s office said in a statement.
Grossman’s comments, delivered at a time when Afghans are particularly apprehensive about their country’s future, hit a tender nerve. Increasingly, and openly, Afghans have been debating the limits of what they can expect from the United States, an ally that is often both reviled here and seen as a needed benefactor and protector.
Compounding the insult, in the Afghan view, is that the United States is taking the side of Pakistan, whose government is seen as harboring or even aiding Taliban and Haqqani militants waging the insurgency in Afghanistan who are sheltering in the territories cut off by the Durand Line.