689.90D/11–554
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (Jernegan)
Subject:
- Afghan–Pakistani Relations
Participants:
- Amjad Ali—Ambassador of Pakistan
- John D. Jernegan—Deputy Assistant Secretary—NEA
Following discussion of another subject, the Ambassador said that he had been thinking a good deal about the reasons which might lie behind the recent Afghan indications of interest in a federation with Pakistan. He wondered if the Afghans had been trying to deter the Russians from increasing their pressure on Afghanistan. He had written Prime Minister Mohammed Ali to suggest that he try to find out [Page 1429] just what the picture was and that he put some good men on the problem.
I agreed it was possible that the Afghans were frightened into trying to develop a counter-weight to the Soviets. If they were merely pretending to want federation, however, I thought this would be very unwise tactics. Russian knowledge of plans for federation would be likely to inspire the Soviets to take more aggressive action in Afghanistan in order to forestall the federation.
I went on to say that we had been giving more thought to the general problem of Afghanistan’s situation and that the more I thought about it the more I thought the best and safest answer lay in the step by step development of closer economic relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even if both Governments sincerely desired it, immediate political federation would be extremely difficult to bring about and might not be in Pakistan’s short-range interest. It would add to Pakistani territory a large undeveloped area with a weak economy and still weaker military forces, which Pakistan would be called upon to support and defend. The Ambassador indicated his agreement.
On the other hand, I said, economic cooperation would help build up Afghanistan as well as Pakistan. I did not know whether they were sound from an economic or engineering point of view, but various possible projects had occurred to me which might be undertaken on a cooperative basis. They included the establishment of a free port at Karachi, the development of a good road from the Pakistani frontier to Kabul, the development of electric power in the Helmand Valley and its transmission for use in the Quetta area, and the use of power from the Warsak Development in the Jallalabad area of Afghanistan. I also mentioned the possibility of improving the Pakistani railroad lines running to the Afghanistan frontier.
The Ambassador indicated that all of these seemed worth considering. With regard to the railroad, he observed that the difficulty lay in the very high freight rates which the Pakistani railroads had to charge. He felt the Afghans were justified in complaining about these rates, although he did not know what could be done to bring them down. I suggested that we might consider whether in some future year a portion of American aid might not be allocated to improve the efficiency of the Pakistani railroads, dividing the allocation of the cost of this particular project between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Ambassador said the Afghan Foreign Minister, Prince Naim, had been invited to stop in Karachi on his way back to Kabul and he hoped there could be some useful conversations. I said we had heard of this and had sent Ambassador Hildreth some general thoughts along the lines I had mentioned.1