MONITORING (SW) – Indian media have reported that no imports have been made from Afghanistan through Pakistan to India.
According to these media, imports from Afghanistan through Pakistan’s Wagah Port have been stopped due to a dispute over the signing of the South Asian Free Trade Area certificate.
India and Afghanistan have a duty-free bilateral trade agreement as members of member countries of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) including, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Prior to the issue, some trucks had been importing cereals, onions, dry fruits and fresh fruits from Afghanistan. However, an official of the Land Port Authority of India (LPAI) stated: “No truck has come from Afghanistan for the last four days. There has been an issue pertaining to SAFTA and the customs officials are dealing with it.”
Traders of India and Afghanistan has taken a huge hit as the Taliban takeover led to change in officials, a move that led to objection by Indian Customs over official signature of the officers on the certification related to SAFTA.
India and Pakistan last month arrived at an agreement to transport 50,000 MT of Indian wheat to Afghanistan through the land route that passes through the Attari-Wagah border, ToI has learnt.
The gigantic exercise involving thousands of trucks is expected to roll out early February.
India and Pakistan had been engaged in finalising the modalities for transporting wheat to drought-stricken Afghanistan for almost 2 months.
The government is learnt to have conveyed to Pakistan that it will be ready to despatch the first consignment by the second week of next month.
India recently sent its third batch of assistance to Kabul, mostly life-saving medicines, by air. Its offer of delivering wheat to Afghanistan through the border with Pakistan though, despite unceasing hostility in ties with Islamabad, is still the most significant initiative in its outreach to the Taliban who returned in August last year to take control of the strategically important country.
Pakistan has rarely, if ever, allowed transit facilities for Indian aid to Afghanistan in the past several decades and in 2002 had rejected the same proposal by India when Afghanistan was faced with a similar humanitarian crisis.
The Taliban have not just welcomed India’s proposal to ship wheat to Afghanistan via Pakistan at this “critical time” but had also sought an early approval from Pakistan PM Imran Khan. ToI had first reported on October 19 that India had contacted Pakistan for transporting 50,000 MT of wheat to Afghanistan.
As per the understanding the 2 sides have reached, Afghan trucks operating under UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) will ferry Indian wheat from the India-Pakistan border to Afghanistan via Pakistan’s Torkham border crossing with Afghanistan. Pakistan had announced earlier this week that it had put all arrangements in place and was awaiting final confirmation from India for the despatch of the first consignment
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