USIP Panel on Pakistan’s Security, TTP & Durand Line
By Elaine Pasquini
Washington: Since the Taliban-led government came to power in Afghanistan last summer, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) appears to be emboldened, committing increased attacks against Pakistani security forces in western Pakistan. And in January, the TTP claimed responsibility for killing one police officer in an attack on a security checkpoint in Islamabad.
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Kamran Yousuf |
Also, in January the TTP provoked incidents near the Afghan-Pakistan border along the colonial-era Durand Line. Established through a treaty signed in 1893 between Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan and Sir Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of British India, the Durand Line is considered internationally to be the border separating the two countries. Afghanistan has not recognized the Durand Line – which runs directly through Pashtun land – as its eastern border since Pakistan became an independent state in 1947.
To discuss the future of Pakistan’s relationship with the TTP and the country’s challenges along its western border, the United States Institute of Peace hosted a webinar on February 17, moderated by Richard Olson, former US ambassador to Pakistan and senior advisor for the USIP’s Asia Center.
Afghanistan’s precarious humanitarian crisis looms largest among the challenges presently facing Pakistan, said Kamran Yousuf, Islamabad-based senior foreign affairs correspondent at the Express Tribune.
“I think Pakistan is trying to tell the international community that this is not the time to abandon Afghanistan, even if you don’t like the Afghan Taliban,” Yousuf said.
Yousuf recalled that when the Taliban took over there was a “sense of celebration within Pakistan” because the return of the Afghan Taliban would serve Pakistan’s interests, particularly the threat posed by the TTP and all of its affiliates.
But six months after the Taliban took charge, there has been an increase in the number of TTP attacks in Pakistan, he noted.
Yousuf said the idea behind the recent visit by Pakistan National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf to Kabul was to get a firsthand account of the needs of the Afghan government to run the economy and help them as far as humanitarian assistance is concerned. Pakistan is worried that if there is economic collapse or a severe economic crisis that event might push more refugees to enter Pakistan, which the country could ill afford.
“Despite all of the challenges, I believe that Pakistan feels …they will have to work with the Afghan Taliban no matter what other challenges there are at the moment,” Yousuf said.
Asfandyar Mir, senior expert on South Asia at the USIP, noted an escalation in frequency and intensity in TTP violence over the last several months.
“The reality is that the TTP has been emboldened by the Afghan Taliban’s example,” Mir explained. “It is not just a cliché anymore, but I think it is evidence from the TTP’s activities, propaganda and even internal jihadi chatter.
Significantly, the Taliban are providing what I think is de facto political asylum to both the leadership and the large fighting force of the TTP in Afghanistan.”
The threat dimension “is the fact the TTP’s demonstrated alliance with the Afghan Taliban really hits you in the face,” Mir said. “The TTP chief is publicly reiterating his pledge to the Afghan Taliban, and the Afghan Taliban for their part are very evasive on both the status and future of the TTP.”
While talks with the TTP that began last year remain stalled, Mir emphasized that reviving some sort of dialogue, ideally with the help of the Afghan Taliban, would remain a major priority for Pakistan.
Going forward, Mir stated, while “…the initial enthusiasm in Pakistan toward the Taliban has waned…overall Pakistan remains committed to the Taliban.”
A sked about the Afghan Taliban challenging the legitimacy of the Durand Line, Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of the Stimson Center’s South Asia program, responded: “So far, the Taliban is hewing very closely to the script that it followed back in the 1990s when Pakistan tried on three occasions to induce the Taliban into giving recognition to the Durand Line which no Afghan government has done to date. Those appeals were rejected and the way that the Afghan Taliban at the time dealt with those difficult approaches and tried to smooth things over diplomatically was to say that it was an unsettled issue.”
Pakistani forces have been drawn into minor skirmishes with the TTP along the Durand Line where Pakistan is in the final stages of fencing its 2,640 km border with Afghanistan. “Pakistan so far has been trying to downplay those incidents, calling them isolated work of miscreants, and essentially saying that this is not something that is coming from the higher levels,” Threlkeld pointed out.
Presently, the Taliban are trying to consolidate control in Kabul, so the question of recognizing the Durand Line is not their top priority, she added.
The recent visit of NSA Moeed Yusuf to Kabul “indicates there is going to be some sort of border management mechanism which is encouraging because going forward, beyond the state of the fencing, if we are to see an influx of refugees out of Afghanistan, if the humanitarian situation worsens there, these are all issues that will put pressure on the Durand Line question,” Threlkeld said.
The Durand Line right now is more of a “symptom of broader mistrust and instability between the two sides rather than the cause itself,” she continued. “But, it’s worth keeping in mind…that the Taliban is looking for ways of demonstrating their legitimacy. I think this is one issue that bears attention. It’s recognizing international borders as the US and the rest of the international community do.”
“Pakistan needs a strong Taliban,” Threlkeld opined. “It doesn’t want Afghanistan to fall into civil war or to become a failed state, but the question is how you provide something as simple as assistance and technical support without recognizing the Taliban.”
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
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