The Durand Line: Fragile frontier

Conflict has flared once again between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed that Pakistan carried out air strikes inside its territory, killing 10 people near the Durand Line, in the intervening night of November 24 and 25. The strikes reportedly took place in Paktika, Khost and Kunar provinces.

At the centre of the hostilities is the contentious Durand Line, the international border between the two nations delineated in 1893 by an agreement between the British and Abdur Rahman Khan, the then-emir of Afghanistan.

It stretches from the border with Iran in the west to China’s border in the east, spanning 2,600 km through the Karakoram range to the Registan desert. The border was established pre-partition in 1893 as the border between British India and the Emirate of Afghanistan, and is named after Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, former foreign secretary of the [British] government of India.

Afghanistan, at the heart of Asia, assumed great strategic importance in the 1800s, caught in the crosshairs of the Great Game between Russia and the British Empire for control of Central Asia. British forces invaded Afghanistan in 1839, in what was later called the First Anglo-Afghan War, in a bid to prevent Russia from expanding southwards. They were, however, pushed back by Pashtun forces.

In 1878, the British invaded Afghanistan again, and emerged victorious in what was the second Anglo-Afghan War. The following year, Yaqub Khan signed the Treaty of Gandamak, handing over Afghan foreign policy to the British in exchange for protection, withdrawal and a promise of non-interference in internal affairs.

In 1893, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand negotiated with Emir Abdul Rahman Khan to delineate a boundary between Afghanistan and India. The resultant agreement was notably short, only seven clauses filling a page. The Durand Line itself was demarcated by a joint Afghan-British survey between 1894 and 1896. The exercise divided Pashtun areas and the tribes who depended on the region, granted Balochistan to British India and established the Wakhan corridor as the buffer zone between the Russian and British empires.

Treaty of Rawalpindi

Afghan-British relations took a downturn post the death of Abdur Rahman Khan in 1901 and particularly after the assassination of his successor Habibullah in 1919. Amanullah, no friend to the British, came to the throne, and soon after, the third Anglo-Afghan War took place.

This war ended with the Treaty of Rawalpindi, which handed foreign policy control back to Afghanistan and reaffirmed the Durand Line.

Following the partition of India in 1947, Pakistan inherited the Durand Line Agreement, with three of its provinces lying along this border. However, Pashtuns on either side of the Durand Line sought independence and a sovereign state of Pashtunistan. Further, Afghanistan reneged on its acceptance of the Durand Line, declaring the agreement and the border delineated by it as void, the antique creation of a colonial government no longer in existence.

Successive regimes in Afghanistan, including the present-day Taliban government, have refused to accept the validity of the Durand Line. Afghanistan presses forward with its claims to Pashtun areas and Balochistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan commenced building a fence along this border in 2017, inviting further ire from its neighbour.

Uncertainty has persisted along the Durand Line, with insurgent movement and cross-border firing, during the Cold War era and beyond. Skirmishes earlier this year ended in a ceasefire brokered by Qatar in October. However, the mention of the Durand Line as a border in the ceasefire statement upset Afghan officials, prompting a revised statement from Qatar, seeking to “contribute to ending tensions between the two brotherly countries and form a solid foundation for sustainable peace in the region”.

Now, escalating military presence and heightened surveillance threaten the timorous peace of an already fragile frontier.