Afghanistan. A History from 1260 to the Present - Jonathan L. Lee (2018)

afghanistan

his rival, the Khan of Khar. Bitter fighting followed between pro-Afghan
and pro-Pakistani tribal militias, while Pakistan’s American warplanes
bombed Afghan positions and even conducted a raid inside Afghan
territory. In 1961 diplomatic relations were severed once more, the Afghan–
Pakistan frontier was closed, and Prime Minister Da’ud declared he would
not reopen it until Pakistan agreed to negotiation on self -determination
for Pushtunistan. Pakistan retaliated by halting the annual Ghilzai migra-
tion on the grounds that they had neither Afghan passports nor Pakistani
visas. Da’ud’s decision to close the frontier hit Afghanistan much harder
than Pakistan. Indeed his decision was as ill-timed as it could be, for
Afghanistan’s autumn fruit crop was about to be harvested and closure of
the frontier prevented the export of grapes, melons and other perishables
to Pakistan and India. In the end Aryana Airlines airlifted the grapes to
India at great cost and the Soviet Union bought up the remaining crop.
Da’ud, however, refused to reopen the frontier and it remained sealed for
nearly four years.

Prime Minister Da’ud and Afghan-Soviet relations

The closure of the Pakistan frontier led Da’ud’s government to turn to the
ussr in an attempt to secure an alternative transit route for Afghanistan’s
imports and exports, as well as a means of rearming to counteract Pakistan’s
modern, u.s.-equipped army. Da’ud appears to have believed that closer ties
with Moscow would lessen any possible Soviet intervention in northern
Afghanistan, a threat that continued to cause anxiety in government circles.
During the brief period of the Liberal Parliament, several representatives
of the Turco-Tajik population of the northern provinces gained seats in the
Wolusi Jirga, where they complained that most of the funds and loans for
development projects were spent in the Pushtu-majority areas of southern
Afghanistan. In an attempt to address this grievance, the government asked
the United Nations to conduct a feasibility study into the potential exploit-
ation of the oil and gas fields in the Shibarghan and Sar-i Pul regions. The
presence of French surveyors, who were commissioned to conduct a survey,
led to an immediate reaction from the Kremlin. The Afghan ambassador
in Moscow was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where he was given ‘a
severe tongue lashing’ and presented with an aide-memoire condemning oil
and gas exploration or extraction by any nato country to be ‘an unfriendly
act’ and a violation of the 1931 Soviet-Afghan Treaty. 37 The Afghan govern-
ment was left in no doubt about the consequences of ignoring the Soviet
protest or that the ussr regarded Afghanistan’s northern provinces as being