All indications are that the US is preparing to fish in the troubled waters of the Taliban's tensions with Islamabad, according to M.K. Bhadrakumar, a former Indian diplomat.
A recent discussion at the Washington-based think tank US Institute of Peace (which is an American federal institution established by the US Congress) anticipated the likelihood that the recent border incidents on the Durand Line can potentially lead to a rupture in the relations between Kabul and Islamabad, Bhadrakumar said.
Taking part in the discussion, Ambassador Richard Olson (former US envoy to Islamabad) said that there is an inevitability about the Taliban's "break" with Islamabad over the question of Durand Line "despite the Taliban's historic reliance on Pakistan for support", as the Taliban has a position consistent with the stance of all previous Afghan governments since 1947 asserting the right to free movement of Pashtuns across the colonial era frontier and not recognising the line as an international boundary.
Olson went on to say: "The issue may be further complicated by the fact that apart from the issue of recognition Pakistan demarcates the Durand Line differently from Afghanistan, and thus portions of the Pakistani fence may lie within what Afghanistan (and most of the international community, including the United States) would consider Afghan territory."
Please note the subtle hint here that Washington is sympathetic toward the Taliban position. Olson adds:
"But for Islamabad, the question of unrest in its own Pashtun territories looms much larger now than it did three decades ago... Kabul's allowing of a de facto safe haven for the Pakistani Taliban is already a large irritant in the bilateral relationship. If Islamabad perceives that the Afghan Taliban has moved beyond asserting a traditional position on the Durand Line to actually supporting a revanchist movement to reclaim lost Pashtun lands, the relationship may well break. Already Islamabad is ascribing the TTP's renewed strength to Indian machinations, so the regional implications of this conflict are potentially large."
To be sure, these are explosive remarks by a former American ambassador to Pakistan.
Dr. Asfandyar Mir
Dr. Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert in the Asia Center at USIP, participating in the discussion, said:
Pakistan's fencing of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has been a central project of Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Qamar Bajwa's security policy for the country's western frontier.
The Taliban's repudiation of Pakistan's position on the border and actual physical effort to dismantle the fence at multiple points is more than an invocation of a historical claim.
It is a tangible challenge to a pillar of Pakistan's recent security policy more serious than the rhetorical challenges of the former Afghan government under presidents Ashraf Ghani and Hamid Karzai.
But if the Taliban ramp up their challenge against the border, Pakistan might seek to influence the Taliban's internal politics more aggressively.
Andrew Watkins
Andrew Watkins, another senior expert on Afghanistan for the U.S. Institute of Peace, also participating in the discussion, said: The actions of Taliban forces along the border with Pakistan should be assessed in tandem with other recent Taliban skirmishes along the borders with Turkmenistan and Iran (and a handful of tense situations with Tajikistan as well).
Though both Taliban and neighboring country officials have downplayed these incidents and they are not similarly rooted in a border controversy as live or hot as that of the Durand Line, the Taliban seems to have experienced a rough learning curve when it comes to border security.
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