Blurring the Afghan-Pakistan Border
Hamed Karzai is proposing a Pashtun Loya Jirga involving elements from Afghanistan and Pakistan, both state and non-state actors. It sounds like an attempt to reach some kind of rapprochement with Pakistan and the rebels at the same time; perhaps too ambitious an ideal.
It is in some ways an admission of the illegitimacy of the border, the so-called Durand Line, clumsily drawn up by the British in 1893. The plan also sounds like an ideal arena for a couple of assasination attempts.
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Karzai for jirga to crush Taleban
"I am thinking of a meeting between Afghan civil society, Afghan elders, tribal chiefs, clergy and Afghan spiritual leadership plus the intellectuals. From the Pakistan side I am hoping for the same thing," Mr Karzai told this correspondent in an exclusive interview.
"It should be a gathering of the people from one end of the Afghan border with Pakistan to the other end."
Mr Karzai said the jirga would attempt to revive Pashtun civil society on both sides of the border in order to combat what he called the growing Talebanisation of the region.
