Canada Practicing Diplomacy on Afghanistan’s Border
Embassy, June 4th, 2008
NEWS STORY
While Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan has been leading diplomatic efforts to secure the Afghan-Pakistan border, both countries are calling for the other to get serious about stopping the Taliban insurgents who crisscross the porous border with apparent ease.
Meanwhile, a visiting U.S. diplomat has issued a clarion call for a broader regional compact that would see Afghanistan’s neighbours get their acts together.
In an interview with Embassy last week, Mr. Lalani said that he has been working for months to help bring together Afghan and Pakistani officials so they can improve management of their shared border.
The almost 2,500-kilometer-long border has been a nagging problem for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the international community, including Canadian troops based in Kandahar. It is widely known that Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters use the Pakistani border areas as safe havens from which to prepare and launch attacks into Afghanistan.
Mr. Lalani said his Canadian-led border co-operation effort began six months ago, when he and his senior staff brought together officials from various ministries on both sides of the border.
The initial meeting, held in Dubai, involved officials from both countries’ ministries of foreign affairs, interior, and trade promotion.
After a brief hiatus during the recent Pakistani election, the process resumed with two more meetings in Pakistan. The next two meetings are scheduled to be held in Afghanistan.
The first success, Mr. Lalani said, was getting the process started.
“Accomplishment one was getting them together, because they weren’t getting together on their own,” he said. “It was Canada that brought them together.”
At the table, Mr. Lalani said Canada tries to impart lessons learned through managing its own border with the United States. The goal, he said, is a border that is open, accessible and secure.
This is essential, he said, to the economic development of Afghanistan
“If we’re going to get trade going, they need to have a secure, reliable border to get their products out,” he said.
Mr. Lalani said he is working with Afghan and Pakistani officials to develop a joint agenda for border improvement projects. This agenda now includes improvement to border infrastructure, building and upgrading of border stations and the training of guards.
Mr. Lalani said that once the two countries develop their joint agenda, he hopes to bring the plan to the G8, which could provide both financial and political support to help make the agenda a reality.
But for now, he said, he is concentrating on removing some very basic wrenches from the gears of border machinery.
For example, he said, “they don’t even have an agreement on the common opening times on each side of border.”
Afghans, Pakistanis Point Fingers
While Canada is trying to foment Afghan-Pakistani co-operation along the border, there remain strong indications the two sides aren’t seeing eye to eye as each is calling on the other to step up its game and crack down on the violent extremists hurting both countries prospects for peace and prosperity.
Afghan Ambassador to Canada Omar Samad told Embassy last week that he appreciates Canada’s efforts to boost border co-operation.
“We welcome any international efforts, including Canada’s, to help us bring stability to the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan through any non-military initiatives that would promote understanding and trade co-operation,” he said.
However, Mr. Samad expressed concern with Taliban strongholds in Pakistan’s border regions.
“Afghanistan’s security concerns are tied to regional dynamics,” he said. “To seek a real and comprehensive solution to some of the outstanding issues, [addressing] terrorist safe havens, training grounds and channels of funding have to be part of such a solution.”
Mr. Samad also expressed displeasure with the new Pakistani government’s decision to sign a peace agreement with Taliban militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the border. The May deal stipulates that the Pakistani government will gradually draw down military forces in the areas in exchange for militants laying down their arms.
Mr. Samad called the move, which was done against American advice, “one-sided.”
“If it’s not as part of comprehensive, all-party agreement, it may not be a solution for all of us,” he said. “Because the threat is of a transnational nature, you need to look for solutions that are not just local but also address all other aspects of the problem.”
While acknowledging Taliban are taking refuge in his country, Pakistani Ambassador to Canada Musa Javed Chohan disagreed that his country is not pulling its weight on the border.
“Its best to avoid the blame game,” he said,
Mr. Chohan said that Pakistan is a “frontline state” in the War on Terror, and is working hard to stem the flow of insurgents across the mountainous border.
“We are taking very rigorous action,” he said, adding that there are more than 100,000 Pakistani troops manning 1,000 military posts along the border. Just this year, he added, some 1,500 of these troops have died in combat.
To underline the point, Mr. Chohan said the number of troops Pakistan has on the border exceeds the NATO/ISAF contingent in Afghanistan.
Mr. Chohan said the Pakistani government had considered deploying land mines on the border but decided against it. The next idea was fencing off a high-traffic section of the border near the tribal areas, but he said this effort was frustrated by protests from Afghan authorities.
So who needs to do more? Mr. Chohan says it’s the Afghans.
“We do hope the Afghan authorities would do more to address the issues,” he said. “The problem is in Afghanistan. Its an Afghan problem.”
However, Mr. Chohan said, military efforts alone will not be enough to settle the problems in the volatile tribal areas.
He said Pakistan’s strategy is to increase stability by boosting the socio-economic wellbeing of marginalized tribals. While military force will be used against those that refuse to put down their weapons, he said, those that do are welcome to return to the national political fold.
“Political engagement is possible only with those who renounce militancy and violence; don’t allow the use of our territory against any other country, and do not help foreign terrorist elements to find hideouts in our territory,” Mr. Chohan said.
Mr. Chohan said the government is also trying to improve the incomes of impoverished FATA residents. The government has established so-called “reconstruction opportunity zones” to try to create industrial jobs and boost incomes.
He said his government has proposed to the United States that it allow duty-free access to the U.S. market for products made in the special zones. He added that he has proposed a similar deal to Canada.
“You have to promote the socio-economic development of that region which is very poor and backward,” he said. “[We need to] establish industry so people there are gainfully employed.”
Regional Approach Needed
Last week, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs Karl Inderfurth visited Ottawa to spread around some big ideas about how to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.
Mr. Inderfurth, who worked on the recent Afghanistan Study Group Report, said at a speech at the University of Ottawa that a broader regional approach is needed to stabilize Afghanistan.
Mr. Inderfurth pointed out that the Afghanistan Study Group, the Atlantic Council of the United States, the UN Security Council, the “vision document” produced at the NATO Bucharest conference and Canada’s own John Manley-headed Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan are unanimous in calling for increased focus on regional diplomatic cohesion.
Quoting the Afghanistan Study Group Report, Mr. Inderfurth said that “to reach the international goal of stable and peaceful Afghanistan, Kabul needs to have better and more reliable relations with its neighbours and the major states of Asia—Russia, India and China. Achieving this calls for a much more comprehensive and sustainable diplomatic effort to engage all regional players.”
He added that engaging Iran, India, the states of Central Asia and, of course, Pakistan are also crucial.
To increase regional co-operation, Mr. Inderfurth is calling for an international conference, led by UN Special Representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide, to be held to bring together all concerned parties.
“Over the longer term…the UN should convene a high level international conference attended by all Afghanistan’s neighbours and other concerned major powers,” he said. “The goals would be a multilateral compact that recognizes Afghanistan’s borders, pledges non-interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, explicitly bans the supply of arms to non-governmental actors and affirms that… Afghanistan be recognized as a permanently neutral state.”
Unless a more coherent regional approach can be crafted, he said, NATO’s gambit in Afghanistan could fail.
“Without a genuine long-term commitment on the part of US, Canada and the international community we will fail again,” he said. “And they and we will again pay a grievous price.”
Ismailimail 