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Pakistan, Afghanistan to use satellite to end border dispute
Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to use the global positioning system (GPS) under the US aegis to work out coordinates with the help of satellites and match it with maps to sort out their border dispute along the tribal region dividing the two countries, reports said Wednesday. The decision to use GPS technology was reached at a technical committee meeting of senior military officers of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States that visited the three disputed sites along the Mohmand tribal region yesterday, according to the Dawn newspaper. The tripartite technical committee, including three military officers from Afghanistan, two military officers each from the United States forces and the Pakistan Army flew into Peshawar to discuss the border dispute that led to recent skirmishes between the two neighboring countries in recent weeks. "The GPS technology is being used to work out the coordinates through satellites and match the findings with maps on the ground to see if there has been any intrusion as alleged," an official said. "The Afghans had brought the Russian maps of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border; the Americans had their own maps and we gave them ours," he added.The three sets of maps most likely showed three different border locations. Work out the differences and paint a line on the ground. The technical committee was told that Pakistani forces had not crossed the border. "In fact, we are minus one kilometer from the zero-line," the official maintained. "It just depends on which zero-line youâre talking about" "This is not a complicated or difficult issue. This is purely a technical matter. If the committee concludes that our forces have strayed into the Afghan territory, we will pull them back. If there is any misunderstanding, we are willing to remove this and make adjustments. "Gonna move that border so we didnât cross it." Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier this week reiterated his claim that Pakistani troops had intruded about 600 meters into Afghan territory but backed down from Afghanistanâs earlier assertion that forces from the neighbouring country had moved 40 kilometers inside Afghanistan. After the border is fixed, can we just shoot anyone who sticks their turban across? Posted by: Steve 2003-07-30 |
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