Foreign policies overshadowed by border conflict

On November 12, 1893, Abdul Rahman Khan, the emir of Afghanistan, in return for cash and military subsidies, signed an agreement with British India that sowed the seed of controversy and unrest in geopolitics of the region. Signed by Sir Mortimer Durand and emir of Kabul, The Duran Line is a 2,640 kilometers border that officially separates the two states of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan was still part of India when this agreement was inked but after creation of a nation coined as Islamic Republic of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, Kabul government under the reign of King Zahir Shah voted against the membership of Pakistan into United Nations.

Immediately after creation of Pakistan, King Zahir Shah’s government began to arm separatist groups in Pakistan, received a number of fugitive Baloch and Pashtun nationalist leaders in Kabul and made claims over a large areas of Pakistani territory. But successive efforts by the Afghan governments failed to raise further anti-Pakistan movements and diplomatic ties between the two countries remained tense. In 1973, President Sardar Daud Khan took the rein of the government in Afghanistan, and he openly initiated the idea of great Pashtunistan. Relations between Islamabad and Kabul went further downhill and Sardar deployed Afghan armed forces to the demarcation point, maneuvering over Pakistan. He continued policy of arming separatist Baloch and Pashtun outfits in Pakistan.