Afghanistan has developed some misgivings due to our shared history and the two foreign interventions with different results. Distorted interpretation of historical facts, revanchism born of atavism, nationalism-driven irredentism and a tribal iconoclasm have invested Afghan sociology and politics with a heightened sense of self importance that has regularly manifested itself in the shape of baseless border claims and disregard of international law vis a vis country like Pakistan. Pakistan - compared to other neighbours of Afghanistan like Iran, Central Asian states and China - has been most indulgent of Afghan demands for soft borders and trade concessions.

All other neighbours have traditionally dealt with Afghanistan strictly in accordance with international law without allowing any space for illegal trade, human trafficking and crime. It is Pakistan that has traditionally indulged Afghans by allowing a laissez faire trade and human movement relying on colonial era British concessions like "Easement Rights" that permitted the 17 divided tribes across the Pak-Afghan border certain leeway in cross border movement and trade. The Afghan Transit Trade was a big concession to a landlocked Afghanistan that unfortunately was abused unconscionably by Afghans in collusion with certain lobbies inside Pakistan that benefited by that arrangement.

The combination of ATTI and the smuggling across Pak-Afghan border had created decades long eco system of crime and patronage with political and bureaucratic linkages. The demand generated in........

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