Pakistan, Afghanistan border fencing row resolved: official

Pakistan and Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have resolved the latest row over border fencing by agreeing that additional work on the challenge that led to a tense scenario could be finished by way of consensus, a media report stated on Saturday.
A senior official, who spoke to a bunch of journalists on Friday, stated it had been determined at a senior degree that fencing-related points would sooner or later be handled by way of mutual settlement.
The official, nonetheless, didn’t precisely specify at which degree the talks between Pakistan and the de facto Afghan authorities had been held after Wednesday’s incident during which Taliban fighters disrupted border fencing and took away spools of barbed wire, the Dawn newspaper reported.

The fighters had then additionally warned Pakistani troopers in opposition to resuming fencing. The incident led to a tense scenario within the space the place it occurred, it stated.
Defence ministries of the 2 sides later held talks on the problem. The Taliban ministry of the border and tribal affairs additionally reportedly took half within the parleys.
The official stated Taliban Defence Minister Mullah Yaqoob visited the world on Wednesday and defused the scenario.“The dispute has been quietly and calmly settled,” he stated.
Pakistan has been fencing the 2600-kilometer-long border with Afghanistan since 2017 to finish terrorist infiltration and smuggling regardless of very intense opposition from the neighbouring nation, the report stated.

Besides the erection of a fence, the challenge additionally contains the development of border posts and forts, and the elevating of recent wings of Frontier Corps, the paramilitary power that guards the border.
The official stated 90 per cent of the fencing had been accomplished.
A big a part of the fence has been constructed in inhospitable terrain and in some locations at very excessive altitudes. The fencing is predicted to be accomplished at a value of about $500 million.
Fencing has been a contentious difficulty in Pakistan-Afghanistan ties as a result of the Afghans dispute the border demarcation finished through the colonial interval.

Pakistan, nonetheless, insists that the road separating the 2 nations, additionally known as the Durand Line, is the legitimate worldwide border.
The variations over the standing of the border have been so intense that they’ve previously resulted in a number of deadly clashes between the troops of the 2 nations.
Pakistani development groups putting in the fence have on quite a lot of events endured cross-border assaults by terrorists, the report stated.
Islamabad had at all times hoped that the Afghan Taliban would assist in settling the longstanding matter. However, that has not been the case.
The Taliban didn’t resolve the problem once they had been in charge of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and haven’t finished something substantive to handle it this time both thus far, the report stated.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, who’s at the moment the performing tradition and knowledge minister, stated in an interview days after the takeover of Kabul by the group on August 15, rejected the fencing of the border by Pakistan.
“The Afghans are unhappy and oppose the fencing. The fencing has separated people and divided families,” he had stated.
The official on the background briefing downplayed the Taliban’s opposition to the fencing challenge.
“Fence is a reality. Nearly 90 percent of it has been installed. Not agreeing with it is not an option,” he emphasised.
Responding to a query about talks with the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which had been being held in Afghanistan by way of the Afghan Taliban’s facilitation, the official stated the dialogue remains to be persevering with regardless of TTP’s announcement about not extending the ceasefire.
“The talks are continuing and an effort is being made to reach a settlement. There are differences over TTP’s demand for the release of prisoners. The dialogue has, however, not reached a dead end,” he stated.

The TTP had on December 9 refused to increase the month-long ceasefire that began after accusing Pakistani authorities of not fulfilling their commitments. The ceasefire had begun on November 9 after preliminary progress in talks and it had largely held. The TTP resumed assaults quickly after ending the truce.
The official sounded a bit disenchanted with the Afghan Taliban on the TTP difficulty.
“They have always asserted that they would not allow the use of Afghan soil against Pakistan, but practically we have seen no action,” he stated.