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A part of the narrow strip of territory in northeastern Afghanistan, that separates Tajikistan from Pakistan, has suddenly disappeared. This Afghan territory between Pakistan and Tajikistan has been either annexed to Pakistan or Tajikistan.
With the independence of Pakistan in 1947, the subcontinent of Southwest Asia was divided into Muslim and Hindu-majority areas. So the overwhelming Muslim majority of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) decided to be part of Pakistan in the referendum and Abdul Ghaffar Khan alias Bacha Khan was defeated at his home ground.
But Bacha Khan’s followers did not gladly acknowledge the defeat, and refused to recognize the Durand Line. They chanted slogans of prejudice in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). A campaign was launched for the unification of Afghanistan, which failed after Soviet forces in 1979 carried red flags intervened, and brought Red Revolution to Afghanistan through puppets.
Later, anti-Pakistan training centers were set up in Afghanistan. Materials were published in Pashto against Pakistan, and Bacha Khan’s descendants openly sat on red tanks and talked of crushing the Durand Line. And Moscow began dreaming of access to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea through the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan.
However, the Afghan nation rejected foreign aggression and declared jihad against the invading and occupying Soviet forces and their puppets. As the resistance intensified, international powers were drawn in, and the West and the United States, engaged in a 60-year Cold War against the communist regime, saw a ray of hope.
So without wasting time, they decided to help the unarmed Afghans fighting against their long-time enemy and the superpower of the time, the Soviet Union. This set up a battlefield in Afghanistan that not only dashed the hopes of the Red Revolution in Pakistan, but also broke the Soviet Union into pieces. This defeat of the Soviet Union also had an effect on the communist organizations in Pakistan, which had now become disenfranchised, and they too abandoned the extremist rhetoric.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Muslim states of Central Asia gained independence, and those who dreamed of ending the Durand Line were expelled from Afghanistan, and Russia’s ground connection with Afghanistan was also cut off.
The expulsion of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan unleashed the Western capitalist colonial powers and they decided to dream of establishing their dominance in the region.
The colonial powers not only destroyed developing and peaceful Muslim countries such as Iraq, Libya, and Syria, but also used the internal turmoil in Afghanistan and Yemen for creating instability in the region. On one hand, hard-working Afghans continued their struggle against foreign domination, on the other hand, Pakistan also played its part.
After 40 years of war, United States, just like Soviet Union, failed to suppress the morale of Afghans and came to the negotiating table. This new prospect of peace also affected the politics of the region. Decades of frozen ice between Pakistan and Russia begin to melt. China and Turkey acted as bridges in this regard. Meanwhile, access to Central Asian countries and safe passages for oil and gas reserves from Central Asia to Gwadar came under discussion.
And in order to implement this new possibility, the need for peace in Afghanistan was being raised. It was felt that if the Afghans did not agree on a peace formula by mutual consent, then the obstacle to link Central Asia with Pakistan will be removed.
In this regard, the focus was shifted to the Wakhan Belt, the part of the Afghan province of Badakhshan with rugged mountain ranges of 50 to 100 miles between Pakistan and Central Asia that separates Pakistan from Tajikistan. According to unconfirmed reports, with the mutual consent of China and Russia, a plan to erase this thin line between Pakistan and Tajikistan has been launched.
Russia has released a new map of the region, in which the part of the Wakhan belt is missing, and showing Pakistan directly connected to Tajikistan. The new map, officially released by Russian Foreign Ministry sources, has caused turmoil inside Afghanistan. But the Western colonial powers have also turned their focus into this matter, India is in turmoil, the United States and its allies are talking about delaying the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan. But the question is, how long it will take? How long can Kashmir, Gilgit and Chitral be kept away from Dushanbe?
