AFGHANISTAN: ''Not expected from a brother ''

The incidents that saw the Afghan National Army troops first torturing Pakistani labourers and then truck drivers at Torkham border in the last 10 days or so was neither warranted not called for. And this becomes all the more gratuitous when the people of a brotherly country are involved in the ugly incidence. This obviously invited the retaliation of the government of Pakistan to a degree that it summoned Afghanistan ambassador to Pakistan Mohammad Omar Daudzai to the foreign office seeking his explanation. The envoy, however, assured Islamabad that Kabul would investigate the matter and punish those responsible for the mess at the Durand Line’s Pule Charkhi check post. The grotesque incidents was taken so gravely by Pakistani security forces as they closed down the Pak-Afghan border and it was only on Saturday that it was reopened for normal traffic of the people and trucks laden with goods. What poses a threat in the wake of these occurrences is that the people of Afghanistan seem fostering hatred towards Pakistan and Pakistanis for the reasons that can neither be explained nor understood. Given the situation that Afghanistan needs Pakistan direly in the situation that NATO and US forces are planning to leave the Afghan soil towards the end of 2014 and that Pakistan is still hosting about 1.6 million Afghan refugees, such a conduct becomes all the more unexplainable. This is a hard fact that Pakistani industrial workers had gone to Afghanistan to earn their livelihood and possessed all the legitimate traveling documents including passports which were reportedly torn and thrown in River Kabul by Afghan troops. This is also a fact that Pakistani security guards posted at check points on the porous border, treat Afghani nationals nicely and with respect. Pakistan and Afghanistan share much more commonalities than conflicts and their political future is also bound in a common twine. For example, both are members of SAARC and have the same plan for South Asia; both are eying the Shanghai Cooperation Organization membership for regional prosperity; and both have a widespread interest in the gas pipeline coming from Turkmenistan. And above all, they share a common frontier that makes them immediate neighbours. Why then such hostilities that may create a gulf rather than coming closer to each other in the realization of an identical global agenda? President Hamid Karzai has time and again said he longed everlasting friendship with Pakistan and that there could be no peace in Afghanistan without Pakistan. He must also demonstrate that he is sincere in his claim. Now is the time that Kabul take steps to foster fraternity and not enmity with Pakistan.