PESHAWAR, July 31: The tripartite technical committee, comprising military officials of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States, is meeting again next month after disagreement over maps dividing the two neighbouring countries, a senior official said.

“The Afghans based their claim of alleged Pakistani intrusion using Russian maps that vary from the maps used by Pakistan and the United States,” the official familiar with the ongoing discussion told Dawn.

The next meeting has been convened on Aug 12 to iron out differences, the official said.

“The Afghans using Russian maps claim Pakistani forces to have intruded 12 kilometres inside Afghanistan. This cannot be true. Russian maps are known to be flawed and inaccurate. Even if there is an intrusion it could not possibly be more than a few metres.

“Afghanistan being a successor to the state of Amir Abdur Rehman and we being successors to the British Empire are signatory to the November 1893 Durand Line Treaty. The Durand Line was drawn by the British and we are using the same British maps.

“Maps are drawn in accordance with international grading system. There may be a difference of a few metres but not kilometres.

“The problem is that while the British map shows us well within our borders, the Afghans using the Russian maps claim we have intruded 12 kilometres into Afghanistan.

“Obviously there are elements on the other side (in Afghanistan) who are exploiting the issue in an effort to dig up old graves.

“Even as we use the GPS coordinates, we have yet to agree on which map to use as a benchmark,” the official said.

The claim by the Afghan military is in contrast to assertion by President Hamid Karzai last week that Pakistani forces had intruded into Afghan territory by 600 metres only.

“The Afghans keep changing their positions but we do hope that the problem will be overcome through dialogue and discussion. It is a technical matter that can only be resolved through technical means,” another official said.

Pakistan insists that the technical committee use the watershed that serves as the border between the two countries.

The official said while the American military officials were in agreement with their Pakistani counterparts over its stand that its forces had not intruded into Afghan territory, the Afghan representatives on the technical committee stuck to their position.

Pakistan-Afghanistan forces have been involved in small skirmishes in recent weeks after Kabul accused Islamabad of intruding into Afghan territory in the Mohmand tribal region.

The accusation triggered countrywide protests in Afghanistan and caused an angry mob to ransack and damage the Pakistan embassy in Kabul early last month.

The technical committee that includes military officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States visited the three disputed points on the largely unmarked border in Mohmand tribal region early this week.

The technical committee included Col Shiparo and Maj Tom from the US side, Brig-Gen Fateh Mohammad Khan, Jandad Commander Sarhadi Leva Kunar, and Col Nijman from Afghanistan and military officials from Pakistan.

Pakistani officials conceded that while the two neighbours were using Global Positioning System (GPS) to work out the map coordinates with the help of satellites there was disagreement on map coordinates.

DRAFT CONSTITUTION: Meanwhile, Afghan officials have finished consulting Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan on the new draft constitution which will pave the way for presidential elections by June 2004, a United Nations spokesman said on Thursday, AFP reports from Kabul.