689.90D/10–1254: Telegram
The United States Representative at the United Nations (Lodge) to the Department of State
257. Re Afghanistan Pakistan merger.
Prince Naim, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, came to see me Saturday, October 9th, and said he was glad to avail himself of my invitation to call and discuss some of the problems of his country. He said that Afghanistan was a member of the free world and owing to long experience with its Russian neighbors was strongly opposed to Soviet Communism. However, the sending of military aid from the US to Pakistan had created an immediate Soviet reaction and the resulting situation presented one of the chief difficulties faced by Afghanistan today.
Prince Naim said that the USSR was pressing Afghanistan to accept economic aid and specialists of various kinds to assist in the development of the country. In response to my question he said that Afghanistan had been compelled to accept a few of these specialists, owing to the danger of internal subversive political action in the event of refusal.
The only way to keep Afghanistan securely in the free world, in the opinion of Prince Naim was to bring about a form of federation with Pakistan. I inquired whether this would be an alliance along the lines of Benelux. Prince Naim replied that it would be a good deal closer than that. It would be a type of union in which the two countries would be brought together under one flag. Prince Naim described in some detail the frontier problem now existing between the two countries (Pushtoonistan) where the people of northern Pakistan were racially and religiously similar to those of Afghanistan, an area which was in fact a serious sore spot for the free world. He advocated the abolition of the Afghanistan—Pakistan frontier, which was actually the old British northwest frontier, and thus merging the two countries together.
I inquired what the views of Mohammed Ali were on this subject. Prince Naim said that he had talked to Mohammed Ali in Karachi, but that Mohammed Ali had remained suspicious and had not given him much encouragement. Prince Naim therefore said that it would be in the interest of the free world if the US could offer its good offices in promoting this plan and that it was a matter of life and death for his country.
Mr. Villard, US GADel,1 inquired whether there were good relations between Afghanistan and Turkey. Naim responded that these relations were excellent and that Turkey was a good friend of both Afghanistan [Page 1424] and Pakistan. To Mr. Villard’s query whether Turkey might not serve as intermediary rather than the United States, Prince Naim observed that despite Turkey’s friendship for Afghanistan, Turkey would not carry sufficient weight in a case of this kind. He thought that the US would be the best country to serve in any consideration of Afghanistan-Pakistan federation scheme.
Comment: Prince Naim’s proposal seems to have great merit and to be bold and statesmanlike. From where I sit it appears to be clearly in the best interest of the US. Recommend it be informally studied having in mind Turkish and US good offices.
- Henry Villard, Senior Adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the Ninth Session of the UN General Assembly.↩