Monday, July 10 2006 16:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Islamabad: Pakistan has helped neighbour Afghanistan rebuild the 75-km Torkham-Jalalabad highway at a cost of Rs.2 billion ($33 million) and says it has completed 95 percent of the task two months before deadline.

Although there are many entry points, this highway, which was but a rundown road, is the key entry from Afghanistan to Pakistan via the Khyber Pass and witnesses daily movement of goods and travellers.

The News quoting a source said funds for the project were provided by Islamabad as a goodwill gesture to Kabul.

The border is porous and much illegal movement, including that of arms and narcotics, takes place just a couple of kilometres away from the official channel.

The area has also witnessed armed skirmishes between the two armies in the past, each blaming the other for border violations and trying to push the Durand Line that forms the border to advantage.

While Pakistan insists that the Durand Line, delineated between the British and the Afghan monarchy in the 1890s, is the border, successive Afghan regimes have refused to accept this.

The area has been heavily mined and work had to be done in hazardous conditions by the Frontier Works Organisations (FWO).

Forty-six percent of the new road is already receiving traffic, source quoted National Highway Authority chairman Farrukh Javed as saying.