ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi acknowledged for the first time that there were “some complications” in the Pak-Afghan border fencing issue but assured the countrymen that the issue would be resolved amicably via diplomatic means. He was addressing a press conference here on Monday.
Responding to a journalist’s question about a video that had gone viral in which the Afghan Taliban could be seen uprooting the border fencing by driving heavy truck over it, Qureshi said that there were some elements that were trying to sabotage the efforts thereby creating unnecessary issues.
He said that the Pakistan government had conveyed its concerns to the Afghan authorities at the highest level and assured that they issue would be resolved diplomatically. This is not the first time that the Afghan Taliban have destroyed a part of the Durand Line border. A similar issue was reported last month when some of the Taliban could be seen removing the fencing.
The federal government was taken to cleaners by the opposition in the parliament as well as the government had neither responded to the matter, nor briefed the parliament about the attacks on the border fencing.
The Durand Line border has long remained the main reason why the two states have had sour relations in the past with majority of the Afghans claiming that they did not recognise the demarcated borders by the British as it separated tribes and families in both regions.
