Pakistan Rejects Afghan Criticism of 480-kilometer Border Trench by Ayaz Gul September
14, 2014
Pakistan has rejected
Afghan criticism of a 480-kilometer trench its military is digging along their
mostly porous border, saying the project is aimed at "effectively"
controlling movement of terrorists and flow of drugs and human traffickers into
the country.
Pakistani forces are
digging a trench more than two meters deep and three meters wide in
southwestern Baluchistan province, which shares half of the country's more than
2,500-kilometer border with Afghanistan.
Army officials said the
trench is expected to be completed next month.
They said they think it
will help prevent illegal crossings and reduce terrorist activities that cause
strains in bilateral relations.
Security measure
Military spokesman
Major-General Asim Saleem Bajwa told VOA the project is part of the
administrative and security measures Pakistan has undertaken to secure the
mountainous border with Afghanistan.
Bajwa dismissed Kabul's
concerns and criticism of the trench.
"We have to protect
and secure our borders. So, anything that is done on this side of the border
remaining within our own area is very much legal,' he said.
Bajwa added that an
ongoing counter-militancy army offensive, called 'Zarb-e-Azb,' in the North
Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border is also part of efforts to
rid the volatile region of local and foreign terrorists considered a threat to
security on both sides of the border.
"There are a host
of measures which are being undertaken all across the border (to secure it),'
he said.
'This 'Zarb-e-Azb' is
right now confined to an area only in the northwest, but then we have a very
long border (with Afghanistan), more than 2,500 kilometers, so there are
various (security) measures at various belts of the border which are being
undertaken,' Bajwa said.
The army said the
Waziristan offensive has killed about 1,000 militants. The army has suffered 80
casualties in the offensive.
Against permanent border
While Afghan authorities
have long complained that militants are using Pakistani border areas to fuel
the Taliban insurgency in their country, Kabul does not accept the Durand Line
as an international boundary and strongly opposes any steps that may turn it
into a permanent and more secure border.
Afghan President Hamid
Karzai has establish a high-level special commission to look into the Pakistani
project.
Interior Ministry
spokesman Sediq Sediqi is critical of the trench.
Sediqi said the
commission has been formed and the government is awaiting its findings. But the
Afghan spokesman added, "We strongly condemn it and believe that there can
be no justification" for digging the trench.
There are two regular
border crossings on the Durand Line and Pakistan estimates 50,000 Afghans move
back and forth every day.
Islamabad has in the
past tried to put in place a biometric system to ensure identities of these
travelers, but Kabul's strong opposition stopped the move.
Pakistan army spokesman
Bajwa said there is need for both countries to strengthen border security. But
he said Afghanistan has not done enough to prevent terrorist attacks from their
side against Pakistani installations.
"I will be very
honest with you, I have yet to see any substantive action on that side of the
border, which has been taken to check this tendency of the terrorists to attack
from there. So, there is a lot which needs to be done from across the border,'
Bajwa said.
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