Pakistan to mine and fence border with Afghanistan

Dec 26, 2006, 18:48 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistan will reinforce its border with Afghanistan with fences and mines to prevent the infiltration of Taliban and other insurgents, Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan said in Islamabad Tuesday.

'The Pakistan army has been tasked to work out modalities for selective fencing and mining of the Pak-Afghan border to prevent any militant activity from Pakistan into Afghanistan,' Khan told a press briefing without specifying a timetable for the work.

Safe-transit passages would be established along the fortified stretches of the more than 2,400-kilometre border, and mining should be done with 'great care' in areas that require monitoring.

The local population has to be informed so that innocent people are not caught unaware, he stressed.

Khan said as Pakistan was not signatory to the Ottawa Convention on mining, it could proceed with the measure. But authorities were presented with 'an extraordinary situation and we need to undertake extraordinary measures to tackle it.'

Amid claims that al-Qaeda and Taliban militants freely infiltrate Afghanistan from its territory, Pakistan has repeatedly offered to fortify the border. But the government in Kabul continues to oppose the move.

'This is not the way,' Khaleeq Ahmad, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa after the Pakistani announcement.

'We must confront the terrorists in a real manner, fencing or mining the border is neither helpful or practical,' he said.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have been strained by mutual accusations of slacking in the armed fight against the militants, who in 2006 mounted a determined campaign against the Afghan government and international forces.

Pakistani authorities will also keep a close watch on camps set up in the border area for Afghan refugees, which Khan said the international community should continue to work to repatriate.