ISLAMABAD, 27 December 2006 — Pakistan has decided to erect a fence and lay land mines along parts of its border with Afghanistan in an effort to stop militants crossing into Afghanistan, a Foreign Ministry official said yesterday.
Pakistan has suggested building a fence but Afghanistan, which does not recognize the border, has opposed that, saying doing so would unfairly divide ethnic Pashtun communities that straddle both sides of the frontier. Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan told a news conference in the capital, Islamabad, a decision had been made to build a fence and lay mines on parts of the border.
“It will be done selectively. The armed forces have been asked, they have been tasked, to work out the modalities,” Khan said. “This is a part of our established policy. We are taking measures to prevent any militant activity from Pakistan inside Afghanistan,” he said.
Asked about Afghan opposition to a fence, Khan said: “We don’t need any agreement from any country for that matter, to fence, to do whatever measures we need to take on our side of the border.”
He gave no figures but said NATO troops in Afghanistan, and Afghan security forces, also had a responsibility to guard the Afghan side of the border.
Khan did not say when work on the border would begin or elaborate on which sections might be sealed, but he said the work was expected to take a long time.
Afghanistan reacted angrily to the Pakistani decision and demanded it fight “terrorists in a real manner.”
“Rather than beating about the bush, we must confront terrorists in a real manner,” Khaliq Ahmad, a presidential spokesman told AFP. “Fencing or mining the border is neither helpful nor practical,” he said. “We’re against it. The border is not where the problem lies,” he said, without suggesting any alternative measures to stop alleged militant crossings.
Khan said the government was also considering shifting camps of Afghan refugees in Afghanistan. He said Islamabad would discuss the issue with Kabul.
Referring to Indo-Pak relations, Khan said, “We have initiated talks on different issues with India.”
One Killed in Peshawar Blast
A car bomb exploded outside the main airport in the northwestern city of Peshawar early yesterday, killing a laborer and wounding two others, police said.
The bomb, planted in a small Suzuki car, went off near the parking lot of the airport at 7:10 a.m. (0210 GMT), senior police investigation officer Qazi Jamil told AFP.
“It was a powerful blast, the car was totally destroyed,” he said, adding that several other vehicles were also damaged.
The dead man, identified as a laborer, died of his injuries in the local Khyber Teaching Hospital, Dr. Zahir Shah said.
The two injured men are out of danger, Shah told AFP. Police described it as a terrorist act.
