KABUL: Afghanistan has cancelled a military trip to Pakistan due to “unacceptable Pakistani shelling” of the country’s mountainous eastern borderlands, the foreign ministry said yesterday.
More than two dozen Pakistani artillery shells were fired into Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar on March 25 and 26. The cancellation of the trip and days of angry diplomatic exchanges have placed further strain on an already fraught relationship.
Eleven Afghan National Army officers had been due to take part in a simulated military exercise at the Staff College in the western city of Quetta, gripped by recent sectarian violence directed at Shias.
“This visit will no longer take place due to the resumption of unacceptable Pakistani artillery shelling against different parts of Kunar province from across the Durand Line on Monday and Tuesday,” the statement said.
The Durand Line is the 1893 British-mandated border between the two countries, recognised by Pakistan but not by Afghanistan.
Pakistani support for the Afghan peace process is considered essential because of the two countries’ long, porous border and Pakistan’s history of supporting militant groups. The neighbours have engaged in days of angry accusations, including a Pakistani official denouncing Afghan president Hamid Karzai as an obstacle to peace. Reuters
