689.90D/12–552
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of South Asian Affairs (Kennedy)
Subject:
- Afghan–Pakistan Relations.
Participants:
- H. E. Mohammed Kabir Louddin, Chairman of the Delegation of Afghanistan to the United Nations General Assembly
- Mr. Donald D. Kennedy, SOA
Mr. Louddin, head of the Afghan Delegation to the UN, invited me to lunch in order that we could have some informal conversation. He was obviously interested in continuing the discussion of Afghan–Pakistan relations which he started in November with Messrs. Plitt, Witman and Fluker.1
I raised certain questions with regard to the proposal for a federation involving Pakistan and Afghanistan which Mr. Louddin had put forward on the occasion of the previous conversation. In response to a query as to what interest Pakistan would have in such a federation, Mr. Louddin inferred that without a solution of the Pushtu issue, there would be continued and increased effort on the part of Afghanistan to antagonize the Pathans under Pakistan sovereignty and that ultimately this would likely cause Pakistan considerable difficulty. It would be therefore in Pakistan’s interest to resolve the issue now, and federation offered this opportunity. I referred to the fact that he had said in the earlier conversation that under federation Pushtoonistan would fall into place and asked if by that he meant that the federation would be one involving three states—Afghanistan, Pakistan and Pushtoonistan. Mr. Louddin said that this was correct. I remarked to Mr. Louddin that it seemed to me that continuation of violent anti-Pakistan propaganda could only have the effect of making more difficult a solution of the Pushtoonistan issue. I wondered why it was that the Government of Afghanistan continued this campaign at the time they were saying they desired to establish more friendly relations with Pakistan as an offset to their neighbor to the north. Mr. Louddin replied there were elements in Afghanistan which were in opposition to the present government and would seize any opportunity to make difficulty for the government. A cessation or marked reduction in propaganda would be seized by these elements as indicative of the fact that the government had “sold out” to Pakistan. This chance his government could not afford to take.
I asked Mr. Louddin if he had any ideas as to what his government would like the US Government to do under the present circumstances, to which he replied that he thought the US should re-establish its November 6 approach to the two governments. (The US had suggested four steps for improving relations between the two countries, including as the final one the holding of a meeting between representatives to discuss common problems, but without any agreed upon agenda.) [Page 1386] He added that he understood a delegation would go to Karachi in the near future to discuss mutual problems relating to the Pustu speaking tribes, and he hoped that the GOP would not rebuff this group.
- No memorandum of this conversation has been found in Department of State files.↩