THE AFGHANISTAN - PAKISTAN BOUNDARY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP08C01297R000100140004-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: December 20, 1961
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified and Approved ForRelease2012/11/16 : CIA-RDP08001297R000100140004-4
CONFIDENTIAL - NOFORN
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
BUREAU OF INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH
Research Memorandum
RFX-13, December 20, 1961
AFGHANISTAN - PAKISTAN BOtrARY
The recent break in diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan
results primarily from the political status of the Pathan tribes in Pakistan
While Afghanistan claims that it desires only to see an independent
"Pushtunistan" and has no intention to annex territory, Pakistani observers
feel that the statements serve as a mask for Afghan irredentism. Thus, while
not basic to the "Pushtunistan" issue, the boundary does enter into the
problem.
? The intent of this brief paper is to clarify several misunderstandings
about the boundary and to put it in its proper perspective.
- Most observers refer to the boundary as the "Durand Line" and imply that
it stems directly from the Anglo-Afghan Kabul Agreement of November 12, 1893.
The Kabul Agreement stated:
It
0 ? 0
(1) The eastern and southern frontier of His Highness's dominions,
from the Wakhan to the Persian border, shall follow the line shown on
the map attached to this agreement.
11
00 ?
(4) The frontier line will hereafter be laid down in detail and
demarcated wherever this may be practicable and desirable by Joint
British and Afghan Commissioners, whose object will be to arrive by
mutnal understanding at a boundary which shall adhere with the greatest
possible exactness to the line shown in the map attached to this
agreement, having due regard to the existing local rights of villages
adjoining the frontier ..."
The line was demarcated in places and surveyed in others by mixed
commissions in 1894, 1895, and 1896. Their agreements have been published
in Aitcheson's C 1 ecti n if T eat a ent d Sa d b tw en Ind'
And its neighboring countries, (India Ministry of External Affairs, 1929.
The British Foreign Office has made availablelAhe (Durand) Kabul
Agreement maps with the request that they be held confidentially and for the
internal use of the U.S. only. The boundary shown on these documentary maps
has been plotted in red on the annexed? map. Since-geographic inaccuracies
were found which could not be reconciled with current information. the
boundary has been designated thereon as "apparent boundary between British
CONFIDENTIAL NOFORN
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/16: CIA-RDP08001297R000100140004-4
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/16: CIA-RDP08001297R000100140004-4
CONFIDENTIAL ??? NOFORN
- 2 -
India and Afghanistan according to the treaty of 1893.n Th present boundary
is shown in black. It is evident that the present bound is considerably
different from the original "Durand Line."
Sir Thomas Holdick, the famous Indian boundary surveyor, in his book
Ihe Indian Borderland (London Methuen, 1901), made the following statements
concerning the ultimate boundary:
"It is, however, defined by a line which at one point is at least
seventy miles south of the position assigned to it by the Kabul
Agreement. Concession was the ruling spirit of the demarcation."
P. 239
"No part of the boundary defined south of the Hindu Kush was the
actual boundary of the agreement..." p. 269
While a comparison of the maps does not wholly support the latter statement,
there are enough indications to sustain it as an "enthusiastic generalization."
The Afghanistan - Pakistan boundary, although it may defy geograp#y,
strategy, and ethnograilhy? is a product of negotiation and comproMise.
An examination of the Durand maps, however, has raised a question. The
southern boundary of the Waltham has apparently never been delimited east of
the red line shown on the attached map. The final agreement extending the
Afghan - Russian boundary east of Lake Victoria did not occur until 1895,
two years after the Kabul Agreement and after the completion of the attendant
field surveys. To date, no trace of an agreement has been found for the
extension of the Afghan boundary to the China tripoint.
2/ London Despatch 3206, April 22, 1960, "Transmittal of Naps attached
to British treaties with Afghanistan of 1893 and 1921." CONFIDENTIAL
a/ The 19th century boundary was modified in 1919-22 and again in 1932.
These changes were very slight and are barely discernible at the
scale of the attached map.
CONFIDENTIAL - NOFORN
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/16: CIA-RDP08001297R000100140004-4
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/16: CIA-RDP08001297R000100140004-4
CONFIDENTIAL
-32---
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60
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN
BOUNDARY
Present boundary
Apparent boundary between British
India and Afghanistan according to
the treaty of 1893. (Shown only where
different from the present boundary)
Area gained by Afghanistan
International boundary ? National capital
0 50 100 Miles
. I
0 50 100 Kilometers
CONFIDENTIAL
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Boundaries and names are not necessarily
68 those recognized by th? U.S. Goyemm
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72
INDIA
35486 10-61
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/11/16: CIA-RDP08001297R000100140004-4