Afghan transit trade

Consensus over a proposed agreement on transit trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan remained elusive during the special meeting on the stalled Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement. This is, in spite of the considerable pressure from the United States on Pakistan to agree to an Afghan proposal to open a land route enabling India to trade with Afghanistan.
Such a move would, without doubt, benefit both India and Afghanistan - India because it would enable it to offer a competitive price to not only Afghan buyers, but also to the lucrative Central Asian market and Afghanistan as it would charge fees for the transit of Indian goods to Central Asia, as well as further strengthen the diplomatic ties that exist between the two governments - ties that have raised serious and legitimate concerns within Pakistan's military establishment, as well as the civilian government. Pakistan, in contrast, is forecast to lose two billion dollars if it allows land access to Indian goods destined for the Afghan market.
Unless, there is a win-win situation with trade concessions extended by India on a reciprocal basis that favour Pakistani trade with say landlocked Nepal/Bhutan through India, Pakistan must continue to stonewall the proposal of opening the Wagah border for Indian trade with Kabul.
Thus in this context, for the US to try to pressurize Pakistan to agree to open its land route to India reflects a complete lack of understanding of Pakistan's genuine security as well as economic concerns with respect to India. Opening Wagah border to allow Indian goods a land transit route to Afghanistan would open the valve, leaky at best, even with the border sealed, that would result in the free flow of Indian goods into Pakistan. This would be made with Indian products destined for Kabul, either disappearing shortly after they enter Pakistan en route to Afghanistan, or they may well be finding their presence in Pakistan upon their return from Afghanistan as is the case with the contents of entire containers offloaded at our ports for Afghanistan. The loss to the exchequer, as well as to the private sector would be, simply put, astronomical. Hence, one can fully endorse the government's hesitation to open Wagah border to India and to link this particular issue with the start of the composite dialogue, which remains a non-starter in spite of periodic statements of optimism.
It must, therefore, have come as a relief for the private sector as well as the staff of the Federal Board of Revenue to learn that at the recent special meeting, led by the two countries finance ministers, Pakistan refused to provide market access to India. Be that as it may, Pakistan does allow Afghan products destined for India a road passage, or in other words, it supports the Afghan economy as much as is possible without compromising its own economic interests.
The Afghan government must accept the fact that Pakistan has been the main benefactor of the Afghan people by not only housing more than 3 million refugees at one time, numbers that we could ill-afford, but also in agreeing to a very favourable transit agreement with Afghanistan, given that it is a landlocked country. However, it is unfortunate that the Afghan government has not reciprocated in any manner or form and has left no opportunity to accuse Pakistan's government and the military for all that ails that hapless country. Unless that changes, it is time to revise our foreign policy objectives with respect to Afghanistan.