Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighboring Islamic countries, the neighbors cannot be changed, but when Pakistan became independent on August 14, 1947, the secular rulers of Afghanistan instead of recognizing Pakistan considered the polytheist state of India as their friend and Pakistan as their enemy, and recognized Pakistan as a state after a decade.
When Pakistan applied for the membership of the United Nations, it voted against Pakistan’s membership, the main reason for this enmity is the Durand Line. However, whatever the policies of the governments, the atmosphere of love, brotherhood, tolerance and fraternity between the people of the two countries has never been established. Like every Muslim country, Afghanistan also has secular liberals and people with religious leanings. Afghan secularists and nationalists have been enemies of Pakistan since day one and the religious community has always been friendly to Pakistan. Before the formation of Pakistan, thousands of Afghan youths belonging to the religious community stayed in Pakistan to learn Quran and Hadith from Pakistani scholars and to quench their thirst for knowledge, and after the formation of Pakistan, millions of Afghans continued to study in Pakistani madrassas.
In the beginning, since the power was in the hands of secular liberals and nationalists, it could not change into public friendship and state friendship, and there was always a cold war going on between the two. But the relationship was always suffering from ups and downs.
In 1979, the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan with the conspiracy of Afghan secularists and occupied Afghanistan like the Central Asian states and heated up the killing market. The world was under pressure, but Pakistan opened its arms and borders to millions of Afghan refugees and gave shelter and protection to more or less four million refugees, renewing the bright and tenacious tradition of Isaar Madinah. Not only Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Afghan refugees were provided education, treatment and employment facilities by building centers in all four provinces and they were not restricted to refugee camps and settlements but were allowed to live and do business everywhere like Pakistanis. During the Jihad in Afghanistan, the hostility towards Pakistan of the Afghani secular liberal nationalist classes and the friendship and love of the religious class for Pakistan increased and they became an example of one and the same.
With Pakistan’s support, Mujahideen started fighting against Russia, then Pakistanis fought alongside them. There will be no such village or city in Pakistan and perhaps no family in Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in which the dead bodies of the young men who were martyred in Jihad in Afghanistan have not come.
When the civil war started after the defeat and withdrawal of the Soviet Union, Mullah Muhammad Umar started a reform movement for the establishment of peace together with the students of madrasas, with the blessings of which a Pakistan-friendly government was established in Afghanistan for the first time. But as a result of the aggression of the NATO forces under the auspices of the United States, a government of anti-Pakistan secular liberals was once again established in Afghanistan and the heat of the fire of hatred in Kabul began to be felt in Islamabad. He became a sponsor of terrorist and nationalist separatist organizations.
For 20 years, the Afghan Taliban fought with the American and NATO forces and we continued to give undercover aid and shelter to the Mujahideen including their leadership. Pakistan played a very positive role in the negotiations for the withdrawal of the US. By heating up the market of terrorism, it became a source of mistrust and deterioration in Pak-Afghan relations, and then it reached the point of war. But unfortunately, neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan could understand this “Pak-Afghan Enemy Plan” of India, and neither of them acted wisely to thwart this conspiracy. The tension on the border increased, the return process of the refugees was accelerated in an uncivilized manner.
Afghan refugees were our guests for 4 decades, they likened their migration to Madinah and we compared our hosting to Madinah. As much as the sacrifices we have made, in principle, every Afghan should have been the ambassador of Pakistan, but instead of coming closer, the distance between us began to grow. On the one hand, after the re-establishment of the Taliban government, India began to dig its claws in Afghanistan, and on the other hand, despite the efforts of Turkey and Qatar and many long periods of negotiations, the failure of negotiations was announced. With negotiations declared a failure in the eyes of every patriotic Pakistani and Afghan, both countries lost and India and Israel won without a war.
If even after this, the nails of consciousness are not taken, then Pakistan will lose its 40 years of sacrifices and Afghanistan will lose its benefactor and friendly neighbor. Infiltration into Pakistan from the territory of Afghanistan is a ground reality. It should be stopped by the Afghan government in any case. If it is difficult to stop the infiltrators alone or if the situation is feared to worsen, the Pak-Afghan institutions should work together to rein them in. If it is also difficult for Afghanistan, then allow Pakistan to make an example of them in Afghanistan itself. It happened, but now the nails of consciousness and both countries should act wisely.
Afghanistan’s rulers should help Pakistan by agreeing to Pakistan’s legitimate demands and it is very important to include expedient and peace-loving people from both sides in the negotiations. Keep those who threaten each other out of negotiations.
