Each of the two countries features amongst the other's largest trading partners, and Pakistan serves as a major conduit for transit trade involving landlocked Afghanistan. However, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai (in office 2004–2014) has described Pakistan and Afghanistan as 'inseparable brothers' along with that he alleged that Pakistan uses terrorism against Afghanistan, which is due to the historical, religious, and ethnolinguistic connections between the Pashtun people and other ethnic groups of both countries, as well as to trade and other ties. There is considerable amount of anti-Pakistan sentiment in Afghanistan, while negative sentiment towards the Afghan refugees is widespread in Pakistan, even in Pashtun-dominated regions. In 2017, the Pakistani military have accused Afghanistan of sheltering various terrorist groups which launch attacks into Pakistan, while Afghan authorities have blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, for funding warlords and the Taliban, and for basing terrorist camps within Pakistani territory to target Afghanistan. Mohammed Daoud Khan became President of Afghanistan in 1973, Afghanistan-with Soviet support-again pursued a policy of arming Pashtun separatists within Pakistan. Diplomatic relations were cut off between 19 after Afghanistan supported more armed separatists in Pakistan, leading to skirmishes between the two states earlier in 1960, and Pakistan's subsequent closure of the port of Karachi to Afghan transit trade. In 1952 the government of Afghanistan published a tract in which it laid claim not only to Pashtun territory within Pakistan, but also to the Pakistani province of Balochistan. Afghanistan's immediate support of secessionist movements within Pakistan prevented normalised ties from emerging between the two states. Shortly after Pakistani independence, Afghanistan materially supported the failed armed secessionist movement headed by Mirzali Khan against Pakistan. Further Afghanistan–Pakistan tensions have arisen concerning a variety of issues, including the Afghanistan conflict and Afghan refugees in Pakistan, water-sharing rights, and a continuously warming relationship between Afghanistan and India. Territorial disputes and conflicting claims prevented the normalization of bilateral ties between the two countries throughout the mid-20th century.

Afghan territorial claims over Pashtun-majority areas that are in Pakistan were coupled with discontent over the permanency of the Durand Line, for which Afghanistan demanded a renegotiation, with the aim of having it shifted eastward to the Indus River. Various Afghan government officials and Afghan nationalists have made irredentist claims to large swathes of Pakistan's territory in modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistani Balochistan, which complete the traditional homeland of ' Pashtunistan' for the Pashtun people. In August 1947, the partition of British India led to the emergence of Pakistan along Afghanistan's eastern frontier, and the two countries have since had a strained relationship Afghanistan was the sole country to vote against Pakistan's admission into the United Nations following the latter's independence. Bilateral relations Pakistan–Afghanistan relationsĬharge d'Affaires Mohammad Shokaib Īfghanistan–Pakistan relations refer to the bilateral ties between Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Afghanistan papers