Pakistan's Unstable Relationship with Central Asia

The Islamic states of Central Asia share a relationship marked with both economic interdependence as well as mistrust with Pakistan. They share a cultural and historical relationship with each other since times immemorial. Most of the invaders who came into the Indo-Pak region over the centuries came here from the north and central Asia, including the Mughals and the Ghaznavids. Pakistan and this region also share the common bond of being linked by Islam as a common faith; many people in the Indian Subcontinent converted to Islam due to the efforts of Sufis who came here from Central Asia. In today’s world, these states face similar economic problems and threat perceptions. A common strategy against these problems can go far in achieving economic milestones and bringing stability into the entire region. As such, Central Asia occupies a very special position in Pakistan’s foreign policy. This is apparent to the Central Asian States, as can be seen from the high level exchanges that have taken place between them.1

It would be relevant to go back into the 1990s to examine Pakistan’s relations with the Central Asian Republics. The birth of the Central Asian states was welcomed in the Islamic world when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. These states are extremely rich in mineral resources. Their gas reserves are estimated at more than 236 trillion cubic feet, whereas their oil reserves are estimated to be about 60 billion oil barrels, sufficient for fuelling entire European needs for about eleven years. Still other estimates put the region’s oil reserves to an even higher 200 billion barrels.2 However, being landlocked, these states were unable to take advantage of their natural endowments when they came into being. As such, these states needed to cooperate with neighbouring states in order to engage with the global economy. These neighbouring states were Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. Furthermore, the need to engage with other countries was important for these states because they wanted to lower their dependency on Russia and be able to stand on their own feet; all their bureaucratic, political, military, financial structure was based on the communist Russian model.

Amongst all the neighbouring states, Pakistan was the one which was looked upon with the most favour by the Central Asian States. Amongst Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan, Pakistan was most developed in technology, science, education and industry. Pakistan’s official language was English which gave it an edge over the other two countries because English is the language of the modern world transactions and negotiations. The Central Asian states were eager to learn English from Pakistan in order to engage in world economy. Pakistan could train pilots from the Central Asian Republics. Pakistan also had prosperous textile, shipping, and fishing industries, and a commendable banking and ports sector. Pakistan could serve the interests of these states by providing them with the much needed access to the sea via its ports of Karachi, Bin Qasim and Gwadar.3 Iran was not looked upon with favour by Central Asia mainly due to the Islamic Revolution which had taken place there. The Iranians were emphatic about Islamization and were engaged in religious interference in the region. They were seen as radicals by these states mainly because these states had a relatively more secular and tolerant attitude, having lived under the communists for decades. With Turkey, these states had a colonial past and they did not want to revive it, hence they were relatively distant with Turkey as well. This does not mean that these states did not want good relations with Iran or Turkey; it was just Pakistan which was viewed with relatively greater favour by these states in wanting to establish good relations.

At the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Pakistan was overly eager in wanting to recognize the Central Asian states and wanted to start a cordial relationship with them. It did not take into consideration the various diversities of these states and therefore the need to address each of them in accordance to their complexity and multiplicity of national interests. Pakistan became one of the first countries of the world to formally recognize the Central Asian states on 19th December, 1991. The first high-level Pakistani delegation, headed by Sardar Asif Ahmed Ali who was the minister of state for economic affairs, visited the Central Asian Republics in November – December 1991. At that time, Akram Zaki who was the secretary general of foreign affairs had said, “recognition of the Central Asian states would open new vistas of bilateral co-operation with these states with whom Pakistan had close ties of history, faith, and culture.” Pakistan gave a loan of $ 10 million to each of these states, with a loan of $ 30 million for Uzbekistan. As a sign of its good-will, Pakistan also gave medicines worth $ 100,000 to each of these states as well as five thousand tons of rice. The time between 1991-1993 saw a great number of high-level meetings between Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics. Although Pakistan’s engagement increased with all the Central Asian states, it was Uzbekistan which had most of Pakistan’s attention. A lot of agreements for economic, cultural, education and technological cooperation were signed between the two nations. Pakistan agreed to import hydroelectric power from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in 1992 and set up Joint Economic Commissions (JECs) with the Central Asian states to implement various projects. Apart from this, Pakistan also provided these states with fully funded programs for instruction in English language, accounting, banking, insurance, postal service and diplomacy. These programs continued despite political disturbances amongst the states.4 Pakistan was amongst the first countries which sent its passenger planes to these states.

Although Pakistan’s policies towards these states had an emotional streak based on bonds of Islamic brotherhood, its objectives remained economic and commercial. In 1992, the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) which was created in 1985 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey as a successor organization of the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD), extended its membership to Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and the five Central Asian Republics (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan). The organization had great plans for cooperation and development in the region but it has so far failed largely due to the scarcity of resources as well as lack of political concord5; Pakistan, Iran and Turkey fell over each other in their attempts to reap the most advantage from the organization.

The Central Asian states did not want to support the political aspirations of any state; they were only desperate to build their economic infrastructure. The Central Asian states mainly wanted economic and cultural relations with Pakistan, as opposed to political relations. Pakistan on the other hand, tried to exploit the ECO platform to gain support for its cause in Kashmir. The Central Asian states opposed this move by Pakistan as the ECO was a platform for economic cooperation and not for the settlement of political issues. Pakistan’s efforts to exploit ECO for its own political objectives greatly disillusioned the Central Asian States. They began to wonder whether Pakistan really was sincere towards them. Even if Pakistan wanted to gain the support of Central Asian Republics over Kashmir against India, Pakistan failed to consider that these states for decades had lived under the rule of the Soviet Union which had a deeply pro-Indian attitude. These newly independent countries needed time to overcome the psyche they had inherited from the Russians, the psyche of India being considered good and Pakistan being considered bad. Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev told Pakistan’s then Foreign Secretary Shaharyar Khan that the bureaucratic, political, economic structure of the Central Asian states was still based on the lines of the communist model so Pakistan should not try to force them to change their stance overnight. The stance of these countries would change, but it would take some time.

Relations between Pakistan and Central Asia seemed fairly good when the Taliban emerged out of the blues on the scene of civil war in Afghanistan. Pakistan wanted to support the Pakhtuns against the Uzbek and Tajik ethnic factions in Afghanistan for its own strategic interests in Afghanistan. The Taliban were Pakhtuns and Pakistan’s support for them after 1994 came as a blow to its initial warm relations with the Central Asian states. Pakistan’s recognition of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996 adversely affected its relations in particular with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, both of which are neighbours of Afghanistan and were apprehensive that the Taliban’s radical ideology would seep into their territories from Afghanistan. There were Islamist militant groups already operating in both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan which had relations with al-Qaeda and Taliban and which allegedly received their training in Afghanistan. This posed a serious security threat to the stability of the newly independent Central Asian states. Pakistan, in pursuit of its own strategic interests, continued its backing for the Taliban despite opposition from these states regarding Pakistan’s involvement in Afghanistan. As a result, relations began dwindling between Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics.6 Iran too came into the fray and wanted to assert its influence in the region after the Taliban slaughtered the Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan. Now both Iran and Pakistan were fighting to control the New Great Game instead of cooperating to play a constructive role in the economic growth of the region.

Then came the events of 9/11 which gave a one eighty degree turn to Pakistan’s foreign policy overnight. Pakistan joined hands with USA in the war on terror to dismantle the al-Qaeda and Taliban network in Afghanistan. The current altered environment in the light of the new foreign policy stance of Pakistan has once again opened the doors of bilateral cooperation between Central Asia and Pakistan. However, the mistrust that has built up amongst the Central Asian states against Pakistan due to the Taliban episode in Afghanistan can not evaporate anytime soon.7

One more factor which might adversely affect Pakistan-Central Asia relations is the existence of foreign elements (Arab, Central Asian, Chechen) in Pakistan’s tribal belt in its north-west frontier. These elements came to Pakistan after the USA attacked Afghanistan in 2001. The elimination of these elements is essential for the stability and security of the entire region, and is a pre-requisite for any sort of economic cooperation, investment and trade amongst the regional powers. Pakistan has been conducting military operations in the tribal areas to clear the area of these militants ever since 2004. However, it is difficult to seal the Pak-Afghan border to keep out these militants due to the difficult and long terrain. Pakistan wants to close the border via landmines and fencing but the idea is not welcomed by the regime in Afghanistan.8

In order to establish good economic relations and build the trust of the Central Asian states, Pakistan needs to ensure the safety and security within its own dominion first. The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) has reported a rise in terrorist attacks in Pakistan from about 1,800 occurences in 2008 to greater than 1,900 occurences in 2009. Suicide attacks increased from 40 in 2007 to 84 in 2009, a more than two-fold increase. More than 8,600 people were either killed or wounded in these terrorist incidents in 2009, a 30 % increase from 2008.9 Such an environment of insecurity, uncertainty, and failure of law and order can never be conducive for attracting foreign investment and capital into the country.

Maintenance of good relations with India and Afghanistan both are crucial if Pakistan wants to start economic activities with Central Asia. One of the proposed oil and gas pipelines is supposed to originate in Turkmenistan and reach Pakistan through Afghanistan, going onwards into India. Pakistan’s population of 170 million people together with India’s population of 1.15 billion is a huge and unexplored market for energy and oil companies such as Chevron, Total and Delta, and can also be a source of readily available skilled, cheap, abundant labour for them. But the stability of the region is essential for these companies to come in because ultimately it is companies like these which will set up the pipeline with their technical expertise and financial strength. As such Pakistan, Afghanistan and India need to maintain good relations with each other. Pakistan should stop supporting the mujahidin in Kashmir and India should stop supporting the Baloch separatist elements in Pakistan. It is essentially a battle between the intelligence agencies of the two countries, ISI and RAW. It is proposed that these agencies should sit down and talk their way to a settlement of disputes for the larger interests of the region. With Afghanistan, Pakistan needs to build a policy which will safeguard its interests in Afghanistan when the US forces leave the country so that there is no power vacuum in Afghanistan as it had been in the past. A durable solution might be to support Karzai’s current regime and work towards building popular support and confidence for the regime amongst the Afghans rather than supporting different corrupt warlords in the area. For this, Pakistan needs the help of the advanced countries to build up infrastructure, education and health facilities in Afghanistan. Helping to solve the issues of the common Afghan is crucial in order to decrease the support for Taliban. Pakistan needs to change its attitude of treating Afghanistan as a backward and lowly state that should be grateful for Pakistan’s help in troubled times and should instead move forward with it as a partner state.

Pakistan also needs to make new and better policies for its economy and governance. Many countries of the world had suffered from terrorism in the past, yet they did not falter in their economic growth. Pakistan’s textile exports stood at $ 4.20 billion during July-November 2009-10, a 3.21 % decline from the same period in fiscal year 2008-09 when it had stood at $ 4.34 billion, says the Federal Bureau of Statistics. The All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) claimed that Pakistan has suffered a drop in textile exports for the first time in twelve years because of security issues in the country, the on-going energy crisis, electricity and gas tariffs, rising cotton prices, and the rise in borrowing rates which hindered the textile companies from taking loans from banks. All this contributed to the increase in the input costs of the textile industry.10 Pakistan, which at one time had a far more commendable textile industry, has now been surpassed by Bangladesh in textile exports. Pakistan needs to switch its exports from agricultural raw materials to finished goods in order to make the economy more knowledge-based. A feasible and better economic and governance policy is needed to attract investment projects from abroad.

These problems cannot be solved overnight. It would be a long and exhausting process and many of the solutions proposed might seem to be on the wishful side. However, nothing is impossible, what is needed is consistency and the political will. Pakistan’s solving these major hurdles in the establishment of security and political stability in the region would help Pakistan credibly demonstrate to the Central Asian states its sincerity, eagerness and hope for wanting to establish commercial and economic relations with these states. This would go miles in reducing the trust deficit that presently exists between the two regions.

Today, Pakistan is endeavouring to improve bilateral relations with Central Asia. It is trying to use multilateral organizations in order to strengthen its ties for cooperation with all the regional countries, particularly through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The objectives of Pakistan’s policy towards these countries are the same as before, to wit, they are still based on commercial and economic interests and the creation of good-will for strengthening of the relationship. Pakistan wants to realize the advantages it has due to its geostrategic location as a possible energy and trade corridor for the landlocked Central Asian states, Afghanistan, and western China. The infrastructure for this intense activity is being setup in Pakistan, as evident from the development of the Karakoram Highway in the north and the Gwadar deep seaport in Balochistan. China has pledged $ 350 million to Pakistan for maintenance and upgrading of the Karakoram Highway, and the 2004 quadrilateral agreement amongst Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, and Kazakhstan for transit and trade can be expanded to incorporate Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in future.11

Today, Pakistan’s efforts to re-establish warm relations with Central Asia are gradually beginning to bear fruit. Islam Karimov, the Uzbek president, visited Pakistan again after fourteen years in May 2006. Nine agreements for trade and economic cooperation, and one agreement for fighting against terrorism were signed during this visit. At present, Pakistan and Tajikistan are considering the establishing of lines from Tajikistan for the transmission of power to Pakistan. National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) has now been operating in Central Asia for nearly the past five years and today has about fourteen branches in the region, generating 90 % of the bank’s overseas revenue.12 China wants to open up its western regions for trade through Pakistan via the Karakoram Highway, Karachi and Gwadar in order to reduce the economic disparity which currently exists in west China as compared to the more developed eastern areas.13 West China is too far away from the Chinese coastline in the east for it to engage in much economic activity.

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan signed an agreement in December 2002 to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan, with an estimated cost of $ 2 billion. There are hopes that the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan oil and gas pipeline would originate as soon as the political situation in the region becomes stable. Hu Deping, the chairman of All China Federation of Commerce and Industry, said during Musharraf’s 2006 tour of China that China had plans to set up an oil refinery in the Gwadar region with an expenditure of $ 4.5 billion and a capacity of 10 million tons per annum. The refinery would help transform the crude oil imported from the Middle East into petroleum products before it is transported into west China via the transit corridor of Pakistan.14

Musharraf, during the same Shanghai visit in 2006, emphasized the potential for Pakistan in contributing to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. He said, “…in geopolitical, geostrategic, and geoeconomic terms, Pakistan is most suitably positioned not only to promote but also to play a key role in all interests espoused in the SCO charter. Pakistan provides the natural link between the SCO states to connect the Eurasian heartland with the Arabian Sea and South Asia. We offer critical overland routes and connectivity for mutually beneficial trade and energy transactions intra-regionally and inter-regionally…We have a vision to develop Pakistan as a hub of economic activity linking the neighbouring regions through our railways, highways, and ports, thus serving as a trade and energy corridor.”15

Bibliography

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15)
http://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no16_1_ses/11_rahman.pdf

10) "January-2010 - Textile Briefs National." Pakistan Textile Journal. Pakistan Textile Journal. Web. 03 May 2010. .

1, 3, 4) Khwaja, Asma Shakir. "THE CHANGING DYNAMICS OF PAKISTAN'S RELATIONS WITH CENTRAL ASIA | Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Analyst." The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst | Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Analyst. Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, 23 Feb. 2005. Web. 03 May 2010. .

12) Mangi, Naween A., and Farhan Sharif. "National Bank of Pakistan Aims to Tap ‘War Chest’ of Bad Debts - BusinessWeek." BusinessWeek - Business News, Stock Market & Financial Advice. Bloomberg, 16 Mar. 2010. Web. 03 May 2010. .

2) Maresca, John J. "Oil Pipeline - Central Asia - Gas - Energy." Worldpress.org - World News From World Newspapers. Worldpress.org, 12 Feb. 1998. Web. 02 May 2010. .

9) Pakistan. "Pakistan, Afghan Make South Asia Terror Capital." JPOST.com. The Jerusalem Post, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 03 May 2010. .

(This article was written by me for my Critical Issues in Pakistan's Foreign Policy class taught by Ambassador Shaharyar Khan during my Junior year at LUMS.)

Pakistan's Policy Towards Afghanistan

This article will look at the factors due to which Pakistan switched from supporting Afghan leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Sayyaf to supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and why Pakistan continued its support of the Taliban when the entire international community and the regional countries of Asia except the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia opposed the Taliban and Pakistan’s support for them.

Pakistan’s foreign policy towards Afghanistan has always been driven by its strategic interests. Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighboring states and Pakistan shares 2430 km 1 of its 6560 km long border 2 with Afghanistan along the controversial Durand Line.

Pakistan has, for a long time, harmonized its strategic interests with those of the United States of America. This started when Pakistan entered into the fold of CENTO and SEATO in the 1950s and this trend continued in the days of the Cold War. Pakistan did not acquire a lot from this policy except for the aids and grants that this policy gained Pakistan from the West (Grover, Pg 262). Some of Pakistan’s cardinal foreign policy decisions took place when Pakistan was under military rule. Generals of the third world countries have never been farsighted or great thinkers and so is the case in Pakistan. Popular governments are always the ones that have had to clear up the mess caused by such policies afterwards. From 1988 onwards, there had been several elected governments in Pakistan which were periodically ousted from power for attempting to follow a policy which was the opposite of the one which the military wanted to follow in Afghanistan. Because Pakistan had a different government almost after every couple of years in the 1990s, Pakistani military establishment continued its own policies in Afghanistan. A cruel political reality is that Pakistani military and its agencies are largely an autonomous body which is largely not answerable to the elected governments. The proof of this is the fact that although elected governments tried to eliminate Islamic militants from Pakistani territory, these militants still were there along the Pak-Afghan border where they were getting military training from the Pakistan army in the use of guerilla warfare and explosives (Grover, Pg 263). Therefore, a discussion of Pakistan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan should rather be seen through the perception of the Pakistani military and not merely through that of the elected government. We must first discuss Pakistan’s strategic interests over Afghanistan in the light of circumstances which prevailed after the departure of the Soviets from Afghanistan in the late 1980s.

The most important issue for Pakistan was the disputed border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This border, also called the Durand Line was erected during the British Raj in India under a treaty with Afghanistan in 1893 after the Second Afghan war of 1878-80. The area between the Durand Line and British India was accepted as “free tribal territory” and its people retained their tribal autonomy despite being under Britain’s sovereignty. The covenant was renewed time and again between the British and Afghans by more agreements in 1905, 1929 and 1930. The Durand Line proved to be a bone of contention between Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Partition of India in 1947. The Afghans now refused to accept the border which divided Afghanistan from the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The NWFP is culturally, historically, linguistically and ethnically very close to Afghanistan and many people of the region have family members on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border. The Pakhtun tribes are all largely followers of Sunni Islam, Pashtu-speaking, but are politically divided into the settled areas of NWFP, tribal areas (FATA) and those in Afghanistan. The Afghans’ demanded that based on these factors, NWFP should be made a part of Afghanistan or else made into independent Pakhtunistan (Grover, Pg 264). The issue got further complex because of the inter-tribal wedlocks between Pakhtuns in Afghanistan and those in NWFP. The Durand Line was further made diluted by the influx of millions of Afghan refugees into Pakistani territory across the Pak-Afghan border after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Pakistan converted a large part of the refugee population into being fighters against the Soviets (Mujahideen). This notion of Jihad brought Pakistan a large amount of financial help from the wealthy Muslim states. Pakistan also got a large amount of financial and military help from the West. Between 1979 and 1989, Pakistan reportedly got more than ten billion dollars of aid. Pakistan very selectively distributed part of this money amongst select groups of the Mujahideen and refugees to create a friendly group amongst the Afghans which would not be against Pakistan. Pakistan thought that this would cater to a number of its interests later on. Apart from settling the border dispute, it would give Pakistan the strategic depth to face India (Grover, Pg 265).

The Soviet retreat from Afghanistan led to the diminishing of foreign aid from the US to Pakistan. Pakistan now looked towards Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a friendly successor in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar’s subsequent failure and negotiations with Rabbani’s government may be some factors which led to formation of the Taliban later on. Afghanistan did not have any charismatic person who could command the loyalties of the Afghan population. Pakistan tried to invent such a leader in Gulbuddin Hekmatyar but he was not accepted by all factions of the Mujahideen population. Subsequently, Pakistan lost its credibility in the eyes of the Afghans as a sympathetic mediator in solving the Afghan’s problems.

There were several other developments at about this time in the international world. Iran’s success in its Islamic Revolution in the 1980s gave it a sort of leadership position in the Islamic world. The Saudis felt this menace from Iran and were in favor of having a strong government in Kabul soon which could counter the growing influence of Tehran in the region.

Another development was the discovery of mineral and fuel resources in the newly independent Central Asian Republics which came into being with the breakup of the Soviet Union after the Cold War. These natural resources drew the attention of USA into the region. A US company called UNOCAL Corporation and a Saudi company called Delta Oil Company, two major oil and gas companies of the world joined hands together to make use of these resources for the markets in Pakistan and Eastern Asia. Two major pipelines were proposed over a distance of 1000 miles, costing a total of 4.7 billion dollars, in order to carry the minerals from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan. This was termed as the UNOCAL/Delta Oil’s Corridor to Commerce (Grover, Pg 266). It was stated in the details of the project that “one of the major obstacles to project implementation is the political instability in Afghanistan. It is fundamentally important that a single body representing the whole of Afghanistan is formed.” (Grover, Pg 267)

Under these circumstances, Pakistan was willing to assist UNOCAL/Delta Oil Company as it very well suited Pakistan’s strategic and economic goals and UNOCAL/Delta also knew of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan during the Cold War. Pakistan tried to bring into play its past tactics in Afghanistan. It knew that a full-scale war in Afghanistan could not be victorious for it, seeing what had recently happened with the former Soviet Union which had been a superpower in its time. It therefore used religion as a basis to bring unity amongst the ethnically divided Afghans. Pakistan had previously used this tactic of using religion with some amount of success in Kashmir and Indian Punjab. It now used this strategy of exploiting religion to create the Taliban, as a substitute for the Rabbani regime in Kabul to help it in realizing its economic and strategic interests. The Taliban, like Hekmatyar, were not accepted by all the Afghans because they represent only a part of the ethnically divided population of Afghanistan. An understanding developed between General Dostum and Ahmed Shah Masood of Afghanistan and they successfully managed to evade Taliban’s assaults on Panjshir Valley. Pakistan failed for another major reason. To begin with, Pakistan is not strong enough to do such a mammoth task and it also did not realize that USA would lose its interest in this part of the world once the Soviet troops returned to Russia (Grover, Pg 267).

Ahmed Rashid wrote an article in Herald in which he quoted Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, stating that Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy was not right since the very start as it favored only those Afghan leaders which were its favorites, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against others such as Masood during the Soviet invasion. According to Rashid, Pakistan would have been far better off had it let a legitimate and credible leadership to evolve in Afghanistan which had the support of the Afghan masses. Pakistan is also accused of directing the CIA arms equipment towards its favorites and supporting Pakhtuns in order to preserve Pakhtun command in Afghanistan. Pakistan maintained this attitude when Soviet invasion ended in Afghanistan, hardly thinking that it was annoying the neighbors of Afghanistan, namely Iran and the Central Asian Republics, many of whom vehemently joined Teheran in opposing Islamabad’s actions in Kabul. It can be rightly said however that Pakistan, like other nations of the world, had never expected the Soviet Union to break apart in 1991, and Pakistan indeed attempted to tend to wounds it had caused to Iran in 1995 and 1996 when many visits took place of Pakistan high officials to Iran, including the Prime Minister’s visit to Teheran in November 1995 to eliminate Iran’s fears about the Taliban. Pakistan was in a frenzy to gain recognition of Iran and other countries for the Taliban as the Taliban moved towards the capture of Kabul (Grover, Pg 268).

Pakistan’s policy over the Taliban led it to be quite regionally isolated by the end of 1996. Iran, the Central Asian Republics and Russia were opposing it on one side and Pakistan’s Gulf friends were not giving it the financial support in the quantities that it required. Nasim Zehra’s article “Hot War over Afghanistan” in the Nation stated: “Teheran’s current policy towards Afghanistan does not alienate it regionally but Pakistan is viewed suspiciously by Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Tajikistan. Teheran-Delhi growing trade ties have now been supplemented by deeper diplomatic and political understanding between the two on Afghanistan, while Islamabad’s Washington supporters are weary of openly supporting Islamabad’s policy of backing the Taliban. Compared to Islamabad, the going is better for Teheran.” (Grover, Pg 269).

To conclude, we can see that Pakistan supported the Taliban in the face of growing international opposition for strategic and economics interests. Pakistan had initially supported Afghan leaders like Hekmatyar because it seemed that their interests would be similar to those of Pakistan if they came to power. At their failure, Pakistan began supporting Taliban because they were the ones who had managed to control most of Afghanistan and hence seemed to bring about some level of stability in the country. Many of the war-torn country’s inhabitants welcomed the Taliban as their saviors, even though many of them resented them on ethnic basis. They seemed to be a good alternative for Pakistan instead of people like Hekmatyar because they were basically Pakhtuns, and Pakistan has a large Pakhtun population in its North West Frontier Province. Therefore, Pakistan felt that a Pakhtun authority in Kabul would be suitable for promoting its interests as it would sympathize with Pakistan. It would also help in solving Pakistan’s border dispute along the Durand Line and the Pakhtunistan issue sentiments which, however lessened, still existed with Afghanistan. Pakistan already had a hostile neighbor in India and could not afford to have an unfriendly Afghanistan. For the sake of preserving its sovereignty, it needed to have clearly defined and respected borders. The Taliban were strongest in the areas surrounding the Pak-Afghan border and Pakistan felt that supporting them would prove to lead to friendly relations with Afghanistan in the years to come. Thus, it always wanted to have a friendly Afghanistan, which seemed possible to it at the time if Afghanistan came under Taliban rule. Stability of Afghanistan was also important for Pakistan due to economic reasons. The wealth of natural resources in the Central Asian Republics could be tapped by Pakistan only through Afghanistan. There was the issue of the pipelines through Afghanistan from Central Asia which could be important for enhancing Pakistan’s economy. There was possible influence from USA which never wanted Pakistan to have a gas pipeline with Iran and instead much favored gas from Central Asia. Pakistan was also becoming concerned that Turkey and Iran could deprive it of trade with the landlocked Central Asian States via Karachi and Gwadar by developing trade links through Port Bandar Abbas in Iran and through the Mediterranean via Turkey. In October 1994, Pakistan’s interior minister Naseerullah Babar undertook a highly publicized journey across Afghanistan through Kandahar and Herat and then dispatched a trade convoy along the same path in order to display the potential of Pakistan as a trade outlet to the sea for Central Asia. It was the Taliban who had protected this very trade convoy (Marsden, 132). The Taliban were in control of this trade route so Pakistan felt that helping them could be beneficial for Pakistan. The Taliban had an appeal to the young madrassah students and had no difficulty in recruitment therefore. Thus, Pakistan felt that the Taliban had an excellent chance of controlling the Pakhtun belt and could also take over the whole of Afghanistan if they were supported, just as Abdur Rahman had done with British help in the 1800s. The political stability that would come as a result would therefore give Pakistan not only trade opportunities with Central Asian Republics, but also strategic depth against its rival India (Peter Marsden, 143). Taliban were also accepted by Saudi Arabia and UAE which were friends of Pakistan and Pakistan expected that after some time other countries would also recognize the Taliban regime. It was due to these factors that Pakistan continued to support the Taliban in the 1990s in the face of increasing opposition from the international community.



Bibliography

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(This article was written by me for my Pakistan's Foreign Relations class taught by Ambassador Shaharyar Khan during my Sophomore year at LUMS.)