PAKISTAN’S relations with Afghanistan have remained hostage to Afghan irredentism, which is a consequence of deep-seated historical animosities. The antipathy towards Pakistan was engendered through a false sense of entitlement about areas of Pakistan that in the past had once supposedly been part of Afghanistan. Generations in Afghanistan have been reared on a distorted version of history that regards the Pak-Afghan border as a historical injustice.

Little do these irredentists know that goi­ng by that logic Afghanistan has remained part of the Maurya and Mughal empires, while Sikhs, under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had advanced up to Peshawar in 1834. Sub­sequently, the British and Afghans kept sparring over territories across British India and the Afghan frontier, resulting in three Anglo-Afghan wars.

The frontier between British India and Afghanistan was formalised in 1893 throu­­gh the Durand Line Agreement between Emir Abdur Rahman of Afghanistan and Sir Hen­ry Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of British India. In fact, it was Emir Abdur Rah­­man who wanted to formalise Afghan­istan’s borders both with Russia and British India.

Abdur Rahman requested the British In­­dian government to delineate the border bet­­ween the two........

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