Afghanistan’s Attitudes toward the Region

Abstract

Afghanistan is a socially diverse country whose people hold a wide range of views about their neighbors and regional cooperation. No one single view captures the attitudes of a cross section of the Afghan population. Afghanistan’s mosaic nature is such that most of its distinct micro-societies have extensive cross-border ties with the country’s neighbors. While some among its ethnic Pashtun cluster may be well disposed toward Pakistan, many non-Pashtun groups — the Tajik, Uzbek, Turkmen, Hazara and Aymaqs — have generally shunned Pakistan’s interference in Afghanistan, especially since the collapse of the Soviet-backed government in Kabul in April 1992, and more specifically since the theocratic rule of the Taliban (1996–2001), and have looked to Afghanistan’s other neighbors for affinity and cooperation. Perhaps the most salient view on which one can rely to shed light on Afghanistan’s attitudes toward its neighbors and regionalism is to draw on what the Afghan government has expounded and formulated in the last decade.