Afghanistan Times
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By Ehsan
KABUL: Even after passing one hundred year from the era of Afghan Champion Ghazi Amanullah Khan, who inherited crown from his father King Habibullah Khan and then succeeded victory on Britain Empire, it seems that his era was one of the golden and astonishing eras of Afghanistan’s foreign policy.
I decided to focus on foreign policy of Amanullah Khan, although the foreign policy of King Amanullah needs further and deepest research.
Before King receives the power, the foreign policy of Afghanistan was defined in the goals of Britain Empire and our country was not practically independent in its foreign policy; the line of foreign policy of Afghanistan was determined by Britain authorities.
From the prospective of experts, the start of Afghanistan foreign policy begun after the oath taking of King Khan to take the leadership of the country. After several years, Afghanistan reached independency regarding its foreign policy. King on his initial steps, attempted to take independency from Britain Empire.
Dr. Mohammad Akram Atifi, an instructor of political science vows that Khan used three strategies for taking independency:
War Strategy: The first strategy of King for reaching independency was preparation for war with Britain. His strategy was; before the attack of the Afghan security forces, the tribal areas on the other side of Durand Line stage rebellions, then the attacks from the Afghan side will begin.
The attack launched from three frontiers; the Afghan security forces in east didn’t wait for the rebellion of the tribal areas and launched attacks which were pushed backed. In Khost, the Afghan security forces over run a part of Britain Empire. In the Kandahar frontier, also the Afghan security forces have not made any progress. But the war didn’t last for a long time; both sides announced ceasefire and engaged into negotiations.
Negotiation Strategy: King Khan sent a delegation to British-India for negotiation on independency. The negotiations were failed for several times until both sides in 1921 in Rawalpindi state reached an agreement and Britain recognized Afghanistan as an independent country.
Pressure Strategy: The third and complementary angle was the use of pressure on Britain to recognize Afghanistan’s independency. For this purpose, Khan sent a delegation via Uzbekistan to Moscow-The capital of Soviet Union and from there to Europe to recognize the independency of Afghanistan.
The agreements of the delegation with foreign countries especially Russia put pressure on Britain, thus the Britain agreed on recognition of Afghanistan as an independent country.
The scheme of this three-angle strategy was a wise and smart. This issue clarifies deepest understanding of King from international issues. In this era, Afghanistan connected vibes with several countries even a delegation was sent to the United States of America for negotiations.
The aims of foreign policy of King Khan were made based on the needs of Afghanistan. His first goal was to take independency. Second goal was to develop vibes with worlds’ countries; in this era, Afghanistan signed agreements with several countries such as Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Turkey and Iran. The third goal of King in his foreign policy was to be actively present in Islamic World. In this era, Khan emphasized on independency of Islamic Nations and attempted to play an important role in the Islamic World.
The fourth goal of his foreign policy was the development and progression of Afghanistan as he paid tremendous efforts to turn the country into a modern state. He drawn assistance from Russia, France and German which had good results.
From the prospective of experts, the diplomatic system was also brilliantly active in this era and the government cabinet was contributed with educated and experienced individuals.
Muhmmod Tarzi was the first minister of foreign affairs; also Mohammad Wali Darwizi played an important role in Kings’ foreign policy.
The last remark is that as quickly the plans of modernization of Afghanistan started that quickly everything got over because of its fastness which was unacceptable for the traditional society of Afghanistan.
