As Pakistan deports refugees, strained ties with Afghanistan come into sharp focus

International Courant

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s determination to deport greater than 1.5 million allegedly undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants has renewed tensions with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Greater than 200,000 Afghans have crossed into Afghanistan since October 31, when the federal government’s deadline for refugees to depart Pakistan or face detention expired, officers stated, drawing sharp criticism from Kabul.

“That is an injustice, an injustice that can’t in any means be ignored. The forcible expulsion of individuals violates all norms of excellent neighborliness,” Bilal Karimi, spokesman for the Afghan authorities, instructed Al Jazeera on Monday.

“In the long run, there could possibly be many detrimental results on relations and communications between the 2 international locations.”

Pakistan says most Afghans left voluntarily, a declare rejected by Kabul, which has known as the Pakistani transfer “one-sided” and “humiliating.”

“The expulsion of Afghan refugees on such a big scale and in such a humiliating method, as winter approaches and the climate turns colder, is a merciless and unfair determination,” Karimi stated.

Tens of hundreds of Afghans fled to Pakistan within the late Nineteen Seventies and Eighties after the Soviet invasion of the nation, and extra got here after america attacked the impoverished nation following the September 11 assaults.

Extra not too long ago, between 600,000 and 800,000 Afghans are believed to have arrived in Pakistan after the Taliban took energy in 2021.

In keeping with the Pakistani authorities, there have been about 4 million foreigners within the nation earlier than October 31, of which nearly 3.8 million have been Afghans. Of those, the report says, solely 2.2 million Afghans carry a government-approved doc making them eligible for residency.

Islamabad blames Afghan fighters and migrants for a wave of armed assaults in Pakistan in recent times.

When the choice to deport “unlawful” refugees was introduced on October 3, interim Inside Minister Sarfraz Bugti stated that of the 24 suicide bombings within the nation this 12 months, 14 have been carried out by Afghan nationals.

On the heart of the deteriorating relations between the neighbors is Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a banned armed group often known as the Pakistani Taliban resulting from its ideological proximity to the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan.

The TTP, based in 2007, says its intention is to impose its harsh interpretation of Islamic regulation on Pakistan.

The group is blamed for tons of of lethal assaults after ending a ceasefire with the Pakistani authorities a 12 months in the past. On Saturday, it reportedly attacked a Pakistani air base in Mianwali in Punjab province, damaging three grounded plane.

However most TTP assaults have primarily occurred within the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, each of which share a protracted border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan says the TTP has secure havens in Afghanistan and makes use of its territory to hold out assaults on Pakistani safety forces and installations. Afghan authorities have constantly denied the allegations, saying they don’t have anything to do with Pakistan’s inside safety issues.

Final week, Afghan interim Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund stated Pakistan’s determination to deport refugees violated worldwide regulation. “You (Pakistan) are a neighbor, it is best to take into consideration the longer term,” he stated.

Akhund’s deputy Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai was extra scathing in his response, warning Islamabad to not “pressure their hand to answer this measure.”

“We anticipate Pakistani safety forces and the civilian authorities to vary their habits. The Afghans’ response is traditionally recognized to the whole world. More often than not they don’t present any response, however once they do react, they’re recorded in historical past,” Stanikzai stated at a press convention in Kabul on Monday.

Analysts, in the meantime, consider that Pakistan has failed to regulate the TTP assaults and has as an alternative determined to expel Afghans in a “annoyed” response aimed toward forcing Kabul to behave in opposition to the armed group.

“Pakistan’s negotiations with the Afghan Taliban have failed repeatedly and this frustration has lasted for 2 years. Now that they don’t have any leverage over the Afghan Taliban, they’re utilizing refugee deportations as leverage,” Abdul Basit, analysis fellow on the S Rajaratnam Faculty of Worldwide Research in Singapore, instructed Al Jazeera.

Basit stated the transfer to deport Afghan refugees was “ethically and morally flawed” and amounted to xenophobia. “This transfer is counterproductive and can solely create extra issues than fixing present issues,” he stated.

However Islamabad-based safety analyst and former military officer Muhammed Zeeshan disagrees, saying armed teams just like the TTP want shelter and logistics, and that the Afghans, a lot of whom dwell on the outskirts of main cities, have “exploitable havens ” have change into for the attackers.

“I consider the time has come to take a robust, if not strict, method to the Afghan interim authorities. We should get out of the idea of brotherhood. It’s now not about that, however in regards to the survival of Pakistan, and peace and safety right here,” he instructed Al Jazeera.

Journalist Sami Yousafzai says Pakistan’s deportation coverage is an indication of desperation because the nation fails to succeed in an settlement with Kabul on the TTP.

“Afghan residents all the time considered Pakistan with skepticism and thru a detrimental lens. With this coverage of deportation of Afghans, this notion will solely develop stronger,” he instructed Al Jazeera.

Analyst Basit stated the pressured return of refugees to Afghanistan might have pushed them into their “worst nightmare: dwelling underneath Taliban rule.”

“These individuals ran away from them after August 2021 and now we’re forcibly sending them again. The Afghan individuals have been by 40 years of wars and instability and at the moment are being pushed again, all due to Pakistan’s frustration with Afghanistan’s interim rulers,” he stated.

“This conflict (in opposition to TTP) has villains or victims, and Afghan refugees are the victims on this story.”

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