“Afghanistan Must Not Become a Victim of Pashtunistan”
Author: Aziz Arianfar, former Ambassador of Afghanistan to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Director of the Center for Afghan Studies in Germany (Frankfurt)
Historically, the colonizers — the British — divided the territory of the Durrani Empire into two states: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Initially, after a series of military campaigns, they created Afghanistan as a single geopolitical unit and concluded several colonial treaties within the framework of the established colonial borders.
Before the arrival of the British, such a state did not exist on the political map of the world. The name was taken from an ethno-political strip located in what is now Pakistan — the Saul, Mastang, Rohe regions and the Sulaiman Mountains. Pakistan, meanwhile, was created roughly a century later — to prevent Russia from gaining access to warm southern seas, to separate Muslims from India, and to create a springboard toward China and Central Asia.
Overall, neither the people of Afghanistan nor the people of Pakistan played a role in the emergence of their countries on the political map of the world or in defining their borders. The British also determined the political borders of Afghanistan with Russia and Iran. The Wakhan Corridor was likewise forced on Abdul Rahman Khan as a result of an agreement between Russia and Britain.
After World War II, the mechanism of stabilization was reinforced, and new states appeared on the political stage in the form of the nation-state or state-nation formation.
After the creation of Pakistan, all countries of the world, including Afghanistan, recognized that state. Today, the paradox of our relations with Pakistan is extremely delicate — finer than a razor.
From the standpoint of international law, a state is a territory or landmass, a unit of political geography within recognized international borders, possessing territorial integrity, national sovereignty, and political independence.
Any recognition necessarily includes these three basic principles. In other words, recognition inevitably implies the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state over its entire territory within recognized international borders. You cannot recognize a state while at the same time refusing to acknowledge its roughly 2,650 kilometers of recognized international boundary. You cannot recognize only two-thirds of its territory while leaving one-third unrecognized.
The question that arises is: do we recognize Pakistan as an independent country, a member of the international community? The answer is clear: yes.
Well, if that is the case, any territorial claims against it are rejected under international law. In other words, our hands are tied on the global stage with respect to Pakistan.
Claims also reach a dead end because the world recognizes Afghanistan with those very same recognized international borders. In other words, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a recognized international border.
It should not be forgotten that the colonizers of East and West engineered the political geography of small countries so that none of them would have strategic depth, and each would be like a malformed geopolitical entity. In doing so, they divided peoples among these states.
Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kurds, Baloch, Azerbaijanis, and Pashtuns are split among several countries. Undoubtedly, none of these people are satisfied with the current ethno-political divisions, and they want to live together with their kin under the framework of one state. But from the perspective of realpolitik, such aspirations remain at the level of emotional ideals.
On the other hand, Pakistan enjoys broad and full support from the Islamic world, China, Britain, and the United States. Even India does not want the breakup of Pakistan or the joining of its Pashtun territories to Afghanistan. The Pashtuns of Pakistan themselves have never advanced such a demand. They understand the difficulties of creating a separate “Pashtunistan” outside of Pakistan. As a result, there is no noticeable separatist movement among Pakistan’s Pashtuns.
In general, there is another problem: Afghanistan’s position regarding the Pashtuns of Pakistan has never been clear. Do we want the destruction of Pakistan and the annexation of Pashtunistan to Afghanistan?
Such a course would not only be unrealistic but would expose Afghanistan to a very large and deadly danger: Pakistan, claiming that Afghanistan seeks to destroy it, would consider itself justified in defending its territorial integrity and national sovereignty and would regard any reciprocal action to counter this “malicious” intent by Afghanistan as lawful and justified. In the end, it would mobilize all its forces to undermine the foundation of our existence and tear apart the fabric of our state.
And that would be fatal for our highly vulnerable country. That is why the late Musa Shafiq said in an interview with the journal Afghan Millat:
“We must not sacrifice Afghanistan to Pashtunistan.”