Soviets and Afghans
The Prince did not start a war because of Afghanistan's refusal and the Soviet Union's unwillingness to offer assistance. During his stay in Sarlath, Prince Karim appointed Malik Saeed and Qadir Bakhsh Nizamani as his emissaries to contact the Afghan government and approach other embassies in order to get moral and material support. According to Nizamani, the Afghan authorities refused to provide any sort of help and told them either to remain in Kandahar as political refugees or to return to Balochistan. The Afghan authorities also refused to permit the rebel group to operate on Afghan soil. Nizamani informed the Iranian Embassy of the Baloch demands as well. Iranian diplomats showed their concern but did not offer any assistance, though they were willing to provide asylum to the rebel group in Iran. The last hope of the Prince's representative was the Soviet Embassy. The Soviet diplomats listened to Nizamami carefully. Though they did not give any assurances, they did promise to inform Moscow.
Since the rise of Ahmed Shah Abdali, the Afghans had treated Balochistan as a vassal state until the Baloch-Afghan war of 1758, when both parties signed an agreement of "non-interference." In the 19th century, Afghan rulers like Shuja Shah and Abdur Rahman Khan wanted to occupy Balochistan. In 1947, the Afghan government demanded the creation of Pashtunistan, a region stretching from Chitral and Gilgit to the Baloch coast in the Arabian Sea. The Afghan government called Balochistan "South Pashtunistan" in statements and publications. The Afghan expansionist policy reflected the economic considerations of a landlocked state. At the same time, it was impossible for the Afghan government to neglect its own national interests and to support the movement of an independent Greater Balochistan, which claimed the Baloch region in Afghanistan.
Joseph Stalin did not pursue Vladimir Lenin's policy in the East. Moreover, the Soviet government was unwilling to annoy the Afghans or the British, both of whom opposed the creation of an independent Balochistan.
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