ISLAMABAD: Brief detention of a Pakistani consulate official by Afghan authorities has dealt a serious blow to hopes of salvaging bilateral relations from the shocks they suffered since the Taliban attack on the parliament building in Kabul.The news about the detention of the official, which happened some time earlier this week, became public after the Foreign Office disclosed that it had summoned Afghan Ambassador Janan Mosazai to lodge a protest over the incident.The official assigned to Consulate General in Kandahar, the FO said, was “forcibly taken away and kept in detention”.

The status of the official and the reasons for which he was arrested were not disclosed.

It remains unclear if the official enjoyed any degree of diplomatic immunity because the Foreign Office did not raise the issue of violation of consular immunity. Under the international law even the administrative and technical staff and the service staff at the consulates enjoy some immunity.

It is further unusual for a Pakistani official to be apprehended and put in detention in Afghanistan. No such incident is known to have happened even during the Karzai days, when relations mostly remained tense.

The official, the FO said, was released on Thursday evening after “strenuous efforts” by the embassy in Kabul. Following his release, the official was handed over to the embassy staff.

Tensions in relations that continued to simmer beneath the façade of improved ties finally boiled over after the terrorist strike on Afghan parliament late last month and Afghan intelligence agency NDS accused Pakistan’s ISI of involvement in the attack.

The two agencies had in May signed MoU on cooperation, but the agreement could not be operationalised due to severe political criticism of the move in Kabul.

The latest developments, analysts believe, have rendered the MoU dead for all practical purposes.

The consulate official’s detention coincided with a border clash in which an Afghan border guard was killed and two Pakistani paramilitary troops were injured. Afghan border guards had on Tuesday fired at the under-construction gate and Pakistani forces retaliated to the attack. The clash was prompted by Pakistan’s construction of a gate at the crossing point.

The border incident, detention of consular official and the allegation against ISI don’t reflect positively about the state of relations.

The FO said it also protested against the border attack.

“It was emphasised that in view of close and brotherly relations existing between the two countries, which have significantly enhanced recently, such incidents should not have taken place,” the FO said.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Abrar Hussain was on Thursday summoned to the Afghan foreign ministry for receiving protest over the construction of the gate, which Afghanistan claims, violates the mutual understanding over such activities along the border.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2015

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