The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday that recent incidents have taken place at various points along the Durand Line between Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) and Pakistan forces and that the issues need to be resolved.

Reports emerged this week that border forces had broken sections of the new border fence being erected by Pakistan.
The move has led to rising tensions between the two sides.

However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi tweeted, without mentioning Pakistan’s move to fence the border, that the Islamic Emirate hopes to resolve the problem through “understanding, dialogue and good neighborliness”, and that they will discuss the issue with Pakistan.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told a news conference on Monday that the dispute with the IEA over the issue would be resolved through diplomatic channels.

According to Pakistan’s Dawn News, Qureshi said: “We have fenced and will continue to fence the border.”

In the summer of 2017, Pakistan began fencing off the border with Afghanistan. It is said to have completed almost 90% of the project.

The former Afghan government had also opposed the move. Afghanistan does not recognized the Durand Line, which separates Pakistan and Afghanistan, as an international border.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazami recently said that Pakistan has no right to establish a border barrier and said that such action is “inappropriate and against the law”.

However, in a recent statement, the Pakistani foreign minister said the demolition of the border fences by the Islamic Emirate was provocative and said he would resolve the issue through diplomatic means.