Mixed reaction to embassy attack in Kabul

Following an apology from Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the ransacking of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul on Tuesday, government officials, peace activists, Afghan refugees and regional experts have expressed mixed reactions to the incident. "This was a regrettable incident but we are trying to repair the damage. For us the most important thing is the removal of any misunderstandings that arise, and we have been assured that our embassy and consulates will be given full protection," Masood Khan, spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Office told IRIN on Wednesday. A mob of several hundred Afghans rampaged through the Pakistan embassy compound on Tuesday, smashing windows, computers and cars. The incident followed a wave of recent anti-Pakistani protests in Kabul, as well as angry comments by Afghan President Hamid Karzai warning outsiders not to interfere in his country's affairs. Although Pakistan's embassy remains closed because of the damage, Khan said it would be reopened once it was considered restored and fully operational. The evacuation of diplomatic staff had not yet been considered, he said. "Both countries are dependent on each other and our destinies are intertwined," he said. Afghanistan depends on Pakistan for imports and exports through its southern sea ports of Karachi, Port Qasim and Gwadar, and Pakistan needs a stable Afghanistan to reach Central Asian markets. Both countries share a 2,400 km-long border. Following the US-led military attack against Al-Qaeda and the hardline Islamist Taliban rulers in Afghanistan in 2001, the Pakistani military has moved into the northwestern semi-autonomous tribal region bordering Afghanistan to prevent fleeing Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements from entering their country. It has also participated in building roads and improving health and education in the remote and underdeveloped region. However, Khan said Pakistani troops had not crossed the border into Afghanistan. Meanwhile, peace activists in Pakistan remained concerned over the incident. Qaisar Khan, a founding member of the Afghanistan-Pakistan People’s Friendship Forum, told IRIN from the northwestern city of Peshawar that the main reason for the current tensions was Pakistan’s military manoeuvres along the Afghan border. "There are elements in both countries who want to capitalise on the misunderstandings to spoil the good neighbourly relations between the two countries," he said. He called on the people and governments of both countries to state their interest in regional peace. "We are economically interdependent and have historic and social ties which should translate into friendship and mutual trust." Afghan refugees in Pakistan also condemned Tuesday’s attack. "We are sad and concerned over this incident," Muhammad Muqeem Khakhashan, an official of the Afghanistan Human Rights and Environmental Protection NGO, told IRIN from Peshawar, noting that some two million Afghan refugees still lived in Pakistan. "There are peaceful mechanisms available for resolving political differences and both sides should turn to such instruments," he said. "We hope that in future all differences are resolved peacefully." However, some Pakistani experts believe the incident reflects the fledgling Afghan administration's failings. "This confirms the fears in Pakistan and abroad that the Kabul authorities are not controlling the country and they are not even controlling the city," regional expert at Lahore University of Management Sciences, Rasul Bakhsh Rais, told IRIN from the eastern Punjabi city of Lahore. "This reveals a lot about the weaknesses of the power structure on which Karzai is sitting in Kabul," he said. Having hosted more than three million Afghan refugees for a quarter of a century, Pakistan had proved itself a major benefactor of Afghanistan, and was now endeavouring to help in its reconstruction, Rais said. "My fear is that there are elements in Afghanistan, who because of Pakistan’s past support for certain groups, will create a situation where formal relations between the two become troublesome," he said. But Fazle Rahim Marwat, an Afghanistan expert at the University of Peshawar, told IRIN that this was not an isolated incident. "Of course, there are elements in both countries who want to disrupt the Afghan peace process, but we also have a history of border disputes and this needs to be resolved peacefully," he said. The border between the two countries was agreed in 1893, but remains poorly marked and porous, prompting many border disputes in the past 50 years. Marwat said that future relations between the two countries were dependent on confidence building measures. "Afghanistan is in transition, and we should not try to push the resolution of sensitive issues. Negotiations can resolve everything," he said.