KARACHI: Security analysts say they see no immediate materialization of Pakistan’s plans to fence its border with Iran, days after Tehran accused it of harboring militants from the Sunni terrorist organization that claimed responsibility for the February 13 suicide attack on an Iranian army convoy that left 27 soldiers dead.
The reactions of security experts came in response to a press conference on Saturday, where Major-General Asif Gafoor, Pakistan Army spokesperson and director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said Pakistan and Iran were considering fencing the common border.
“We both are considering fencing the border so that no third party could sabotage the brotherly and friendly relations through any nefarious act,” he said.
The 959 km Iran-Pakistan border which begins at the Kuh-i-Malik Salih mountain and ends at Gwadar Bay in the Gulf of Oman includes a diverse landscape of mountain ridges, seasonal streams and rivers, and is notorious for human trafficking and smuggling as well as cross-border terrorism.
According to Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Islamabad-based independent think tank Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, a border fence would cost far too much time and money, with the enhancement of counter terrorism cooperation a better alternative for trust-building between the two countries.
“Both countries by boasting counter terrorism cooperation can defeat the forces detrimental to their ties,” he said.
Pakistan is currently involved in a heavy unilateral fence installation along 2,600 km of its border with Afghanistan with an estimated cost of over $550 million.
According to Syed Ali Shah, a Quetta based analyst and security expert, a similar project along the Pakistan-Iran border would cost both countries billions of dollars, due to the area’s difficult topography.
According to Shah, the fence would also drastically impact informal trade between the two countries.
“Majority of the people in Balochistan, especially those living in the five or six districts bordering Iran are solely reliant on this informal trade,” he said.
There is a human cost to the wall as well, he adds, as people from Rigi, Muhammad Hasni, Shahi Zai and other ethnic Baloch tribes living on either side of the border have assimilated into each other’s cultures, with inter-marriages and strong ties of tradition and religion between them.
But Pakistan’s security agencies are keen to address the accusations of its western border, particularly at a time when India and Afghanistan are also blaming Islamabad for orchestrating terrorist attacks against them, most notably following the Pulwama suicide attack in Indian held Kashmir earlier this month.
Defence analyst Major General (retired) Ijaz Awan told Arab News that the fencing is doable after the Pak-Afghan border-wall is done, a project slated for completion by the end of the year.
“Both the countries [Pakistan and Iran] shall share the cost,” he said, adding that there is no hostility between the two brotherly countries and both would agree to the arrangement.
