Afghan fresh fruit sparks off new Indo-Pak trade war
As the Obama administration scales up its military and financial assistance to Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials from both these countries are meeting in Islamabad over the weekend to finalise a bilateral trade and transit agreement that has huge implications for India.
As they prepare for their fifth and final meeting here in Kabul, Afghan officials bitterly complain that their Pakistani counterparts are unwilling to allow trade to be used as a confidence building measure between their countries, because they fear that a potential trade pact would open the door for Indian goods to cheaply reach Afghanistan.
Enayatullah Nabiel, director-general in the Economic Relations department of the Afghan ministry of foreign affairs, told Business Standard that it was time that Pakistan “separated whatever problems it has with India and allow a trade and transit agreement to be signed between Islamabad and Kabul”.
The Pakistanis, Nabiel added, must realise that “by denying cooperation, they are denying their Afghan brothers to prosper through trade. That is not fair”.
A bumper harvest of fresh fruit and vegetables in Afghanistan this year could not reach the Indian market because of this problem, Nabiel said, and had to be sold at throwaway prices at home.
The nub of the problem revolves around the movement of Afghan trucks through Pakistani territory — via three entry and exit points at Torkham, Spin Boldak and Golam Khan — all the way up to the Wagah border with India.
While Pakistan is willing to allow Afghan trucks to traverse its own territory, it has refused to allow these trucks to exit the Wagah border and return with Indian goods loaded on them.
According to Nabiel, “the question of exiting Wagah and crossing into Amritsar is a matter between India and Afghanistan, Pakistan has nothing to do with it. What is worse is that Pakistan insists that when Afghan trucks disgorge their produce, they must return empty to Afghanistan. That is simply not acceptable to us.”
If talks on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit and Trade Agreement (APTTA) remain dead-locked after the fifth round in Islamabad from December 19-21, Nabiel confirmed, the matter would go all the way up for discussion between US President Barack Obama, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Zardari.
Six months ago, at a trilateral summit in Washington, Obama urged the Afghan and Pakistani presidents to use trade and transit to build political confidence so as to tackle other urgent issues on the ground, such as the ability of Taliban guerrillas to escape through the porous Durand Line to the other side.
Earlier in the month, the Pakistani media reported the outcome of Pakistan’s standing committee on commerce in its National Assembly on APTTA, and quoted outgoing Commerce secretary Salman Ghani as saying that Indian goods were banned from transiting through the territory of Pakistan after the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war.
Any relaxation for Indian goods could only be addressed through the bilateral composite dialogue between India and Pakistan, Ghani said.
Discussing APTTA in the National Assembly, committee chairman Engineer Khurran Dastgir Khan “stressed the need (for) foreign pressure, if any, (to be) rejected firmly during ongoing negotiations on APTTA, and Pakistan’s security concerns vis-à-vis India must be addressed,” Pakistan’s national newspaper The News said in a report.
Pakistani officials and analysts told Business Standard on condition of anonymity that unless India reopened the political dialogue with Islamabad, that had been put on hold after the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan was not about to take any action that was favourable to India. Trade was a key component of this composite dialogue, the Pakistanis added.
The Pakistani officials also emphasised that Afghanistan must take strict action against the smuggling of goods from Iran into Pakistan, via the southern Afghan provinces, amounting to at least $4 billion annually.
But Nabiel pointed to a second vexing problem in the APTTA negotiations : Although the 1965 Afghan-Pakistan trade and transit pact only mentions that goods can traverse through certain “entry and exit points,” Pakistan now wanted to change this language of entry and exit points to the word “border,” a word that is anathema to the Afghan Pashtuns.
Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line believe the line was a cunning conspiracy created by the British to separate Pashtun tribes living in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Nabiel said.
Meanwhile, India seems to have found a temporary solution to Pakistan’s denial of its goods traveling overland to Afghanistan, with Air India slashing the price for Afghan fresh produce on its Kabul-Delhi flights.
India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Jayant Prasad confirmed that since November, Air India was charging only $.20 cents per tonne for Afghan fresh produce, whereas the cost per tonne, overland, was working out to be $.30 cents per tonne (one truck carried an average of 5 tonnes).
Prasad said that a bilateral agreement to carry 400 tonnes of Afghan fresh produce on Air India had already been signed. Afghan officials would soon travel to India to be further trained in phytosanitary measures vis-à-vis their fruit and vegetables, he added.
As the Obama administration scales up its military and financial assistance to Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials from both these countries are meeting in Islamabad over the weekend to finalise a bilateral trade and transit agreement that has huge implications for India.
As they prepare for their fifth and final meeting here in Kabul, Afghan officials bitterly complain that their Pakistani counterparts are unwilling to allow trade to be used as a confidence building measure between their countries, because they fear that a potential trade pact would open the door for Indian goods to cheaply reach Afghanistan.
Enayatullah Nabiel, director-general in the Economic Relations department of the Afghan ministry of foreign affairs, told Business Standard that it was time that Pakistan “separated whatever problems it has with India and allow a trade and transit agreement to be signed between Islamabad and Kabul”.
The Pakistanis, Nabiel added, must realise that “by denying cooperation, they are denying their Afghan brothers to prosper through trade. That is not fair”.
A bumper harvest of fresh fruit and vegetables in Afghanistan this year could not reach the Indian market because of this problem, Nabiel said, and had to be sold at throwaway prices at home.
The nub of the problem revolves around the movement of Afghan trucks through Pakistani territory — via three entry and exit points at Torkham, Spin Boldak and Golam Khan — all the way up to the Wagah border with India.
While Pakistan is willing to allow Afghan trucks to traverse its own territory, it has refused to allow these trucks to exit the Wagah border and return with Indian goods loaded on them.
According to Nabiel, “the question of exiting Wagah and crossing into Amritsar is a matter between India and Afghanistan, Pakistan has nothing to do with it. What is worse is that Pakistan insists that when Afghan trucks disgorge their produce, they must return empty to Afghanistan. That is simply not acceptable to us.”
If talks on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit and Trade Agreement (APTTA) remain dead-locked after the fifth round in Islamabad from December 19-21, Nabiel confirmed, the matter would go all the way up for discussion between US President Barack Obama, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Zardari.
Six months ago, at a trilateral summit in Washington, Obama urged the Afghan and Pakistani presidents to use trade and transit to build political confidence so as to tackle other urgent issues on the ground, such as the ability of Taliban guerrillas to escape through the porous Durand Line to the other side.
Earlier in the month, the Pakistani media reported the outcome of Pakistan’s standing committee on commerce in its National Assembly on APTTA, and quoted outgoing Commerce secretary Salman Ghani as saying that Indian goods were banned from transiting through the territory of Pakistan after the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war.
Any relaxation for Indian goods could only be addressed through the bilateral composite dialogue between India and Pakistan, Ghani said.
Discussing APTTA in the National Assembly, committee chairman Engineer Khurran Dastgir Khan “stressed the need (for) foreign pressure, if any, (to be) rejected firmly during ongoing negotiations on APTTA, and Pakistan’s security concerns vis-à-vis India must be addressed,” Pakistan’s national newspaper The News said in a report.
Pakistani officials and analysts told Business Standard on condition of anonymity that unless India reopened the political dialogue with Islamabad, that had been put on hold after the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan was not about to take any action that was favourable to India. Trade was a key component of this composite dialogue, the Pakistanis added.
The Pakistani officials also emphasised that Afghanistan must take strict action against the smuggling of goods from Iran into Pakistan, via the southern Afghan provinces, amounting to at least $4 billion annually.
But Nabiel pointed to a second vexing problem in the APTTA negotiations : Although the 1965 Afghan-Pakistan trade and transit pact only mentions that goods can traverse through certain “entry and exit points,” Pakistan now wanted to change this language of entry and exit points to the word “border,” a word that is anathema to the Afghan Pashtuns.
Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line believe the line was a cunning conspiracy created by the British to separate Pashtun tribes living in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Nabiel said.
Meanwhile, India seems to have found a temporary solution to Pakistan’s denial of its goods traveling overland to Afghanistan, with Air India slashing the price for Afghan fresh produce on its Kabul-Delhi flights.
India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Jayant Prasad confirmed that since November, Air India was charging only $.20 cents per tonne for Afghan fresh produce, whereas the cost per tonne, overland, was working out to be $.30 cents per tonne (one truck carried an average of 5 tonnes).
Prasad said that a bilateral agreement to carry 400 tonnes of Afghan fresh produce on Air India had already been signed. Afghan officials would soon travel to India to be further trained in phytosanitary measures vis-à-vis their fruit and vegetables, he added.
Last edited:
