And, it’s not even a virtual fence!
Pakistan announced today that it would build a wall and lay landmines to keep Taliban fighters from crossing into Afghanistan.
Reuters reports:
Pakistan said on Tuesday it would fence and mine parts of its border with Afghanistan to try to stop Taliban rebels crossing to wage their growing rebellion.
Afghanistan, increasingly critical of Pakistan for not doing enough to stop cross-border incursions, immediately rejected the plan as neither helpful nor practical.
“It will be done selectively … the armed forces have been asked, they have been tasked, to work out the modalities,” Pakistani Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan told a news conference in Islamabad.
“This is a part of our established policy. We are taking measures to prevent any militant activity from Pakistan inside Afghanistan.”
Pakistan has previously suggested a fence but Afghanistan, which does not recognize the British-drawn border, said doing so would unfairly divide ethnic Pashtun communities straddling the largely unmarked frontier.
Pakistan strongly opposes a similar move by India to fence the disputed frontier with Kashmir to block Kashmiri separatists it says are backed by Pakistan. Islamabad denies backing the rebels.
