CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION AND REGIONAL INTEGRATION: A CASE FOR CREATION OF A PAK-AFGHAN CUSTOMS UNION

Abstract

This paper elucidates the importance of economic interdependence and regional integration for
conflict transformation between Afghanistan and Pakistan. People of both states are bound
together by geographical proximity, common religion, history, culture and close economic and
political ties. Their bilateral ties, however, characterize mistrust, hostility, blame game, proxy wars,
tensions, coercion and occasional border skirmishes. Both states pursued realist course of action
and tit-for-tat strategies towards each other that plunged the entire region into instability, religious
extremism, ethnic separatism, insurgencies, terrorism, and unending wars. It left millions of people
dead, wounded, incapacitated, widowed and orphaned and many more are relegated to poverty,
backwardness and underdevelopment. Both states need to seriously consider liberal remedies of
their problems and pursue economic interdependence and regional integration as a mean for
conflict transformation. They can create a customs union or even a common market that would be
quite useful for both states. Before starting market integration, both states need to accept each
other’s existence wholeheartedly and respect each other’s territorial integrity including their
existing common border. They must agree to forgo use or threat of use of force in their bilateral
relations and to not let any other state or non-state actor to use their soil against each other.