Pakistan Wants To Mine Border With Afghanistan

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2007-01-12 11:43am

MacKay rejects Pakistan's border mining plan

Updated Tue. Jan. 9 2007 11:08 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay has told officials in Pakistan that Canada opposes the plans to mine parts of its border with Afghanistan.

MacKay is in Pakistan for talks on the situation in neighbouring Afghanistan and on the contentious issue about how to prevent Taliban and al-Qaeda militants from crossing the border.

MacKay spent Tuesday morning discussing the issue with his Pakistani counterpart, Khursheed Kasuri, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, and will later hold talks with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

MacKay told a news conference after the first round of talks that Canada opposes the plans to mine parts of the border, based on its obligations under the Ottawa Treaty that bans the laying of landmines.

He said he offered instead Canada's help in surveying the rugged border, such as aerial reconnaissance, training of border guards and a delivery of satellite telephones.

"We want to be co-operative and we want to be constructive in coming forward with solutions that we think are better alternatives,'' MacKay said.

Kasuri told reporters that Pakistan will "give consideration'' to the Canadian suggestions, but added that Pakistan will not backtrack on its "desire to control the border.''

Pakistan has been struggling to prevent cross-border activity by Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas, in an effort to stave off western criticism that it is not doing enough to stop the insurgency. It announced last week that it would plant mines and build barbed-wire fences at selected areas along the border.

Pakistan is not a signatory of the Ottawa Treaty.

MacKay said the plan to erect the fence could play a role in the solution.

Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada, Omar Samad, told Canada AM Tuesday that MacKay is a welcome voice at the table for bringing peace to the region.

"I think that Minister MacKay's visit to Afghanistan and then to Pakistan today is very important, not only for security in Afghanistan but security around our border regions with Pakistan, which means security for the rest of the world -- because this is a very pivotal dangerous part of the world where many al-Qaeda and Taliban militants have escaped to."

Afghanistan also opposes the plan to fence and mine the border, saying it would not prevent the insurgency and would only hinder free travel by tribal groups who live on both sides of the frontier.

"We don't think that mining the border is the right approach," Samad said, citing as well the Ottawa Treaty.

"We hope to find solutions, practical solutions to this."

He added that he believes the solution lies in more diplomacy.

"We have to address this issue by talking and allowing the locals, the people on both sides to prevent militancy and extremism from taking hold. And the Pakistani government has a lot more to do. We all have a lot more to do.

"We need to cooperate sincerely and practically in order to achieve this. Otherwise, we'll all face in 2007 hardships."

Perhaps they could use command detonated mines considering that they are only going to be mining and fencing some portions of the border and should be monitoring it anyway. It's obvious to all involved that Pakistan is not pulling their weight when it comes to stopping the Taliban crossing the border.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2007-01-12 11:52am

It'd be shit if the Taliban or AQ or whatever ends up just grabbing these mines from the ground and putting 'em in places where Coalition troops ride around.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2007-01-12 12:08pm

Shroom Man 777 wrote:It'd be shit if the Taliban or AQ or whatever ends up just grabbing these mines from the ground and putting 'em in places where Coalition troops ride around.

Yes, you'd have to booby trap them or have troops nearby to monitor them to ensure this doesn't happen. Just having a minefield in place with no overwatch is a fucking stupid idea.

Elaro · Post by **Elaro** » 2007-01-12 02:25pm

Hey, didn't we spend some amount of foreign aid money demining in that part of the globe?

Well, good thing we stick to our treaties. And kudos to Afghanistan for opposing this plan and to Pakistan for looking at alternate solutions.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2007-01-12 02:43pm

Elaro wrote:Hey, didn't we spend some amount of foreign aid money demining in that part of the globe?

Not just that but we actually have Canadian Forces Combat Engineers demining Afghanistan right now along with NGO demining groups.

Well, good thing we stick to our treaties. And kudos to Afghanistan for opposing this plan and to Pakistan for looking at alternate solutions.

I wonder how much aid the international community is going to give Pakistan for alternative solutions. Canada has already sunk several hundred million dollars into Afghanistan both in aid and funding for the military mission so I guess some more money for Pakistan to buy UAV's and whatnot to monitor their border shouldn't be too much to ask.