After the 7th round of talks to revise the Afghan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA), the Afghan Finance Minister was upbeat about setting a "good example" in revising such accords. But his assertion that "the US doesn't need to facilitate us; we are facilitating each other in this exercise", covered up Nato's intended profile of the Indo-Pak-Afghan region after Nato's exit from Afghanistan.
The minister accepted Pakistan's stance on Afghan importers, providing bank guarantees for the goods in transit from Karachi to Afghanistan and on establishing the quantity of goods based on their valuation. He also promised that Afghan imports would now be via letters of credit (LCs) established by Afghan, not Pak banks.
About the unresolved issues, he said both the countries are working in a spirit of co-operation and trying for early revision of the APTTA. The Afghan delegation assured its Pakistani counterparts that it would inform the Afghan leadership about Pakistan's reservations and, meanwhile, Afghanistan will focus on areas for Pak-Afghan private sector co-operation.
He identified communication, infrastructure and mineral exploration as the areas for such cooperation, and promised to arrange in Pakistan the first Afghan road show on the prospects of mineral extraction. A meeting of businessmen from both the countries also took place and another is planned for Kabul along with an exhibition of Pakistani goods.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) for linking Torkham with Jalalabad via rail was also signed, for which a feasibility study will be completed by April 2011; feasibility study of the Chaman-Spinbuldak railway line has been completed and work on its first section (15-km track) will start once the Afghan government issues its NOC.
But then the minister alarmed everyone. Although large-scale smuggling (that the lose terms of the present APTTA permit) has bled Pakistan white, he said that allowing imports only under the LCs issued by Afghan banks and quantity-based valuation of imports were interim measures that won't be included in the new APTTA.
Reflecting Afghan sense of neighbourly obligations, he said that smuggling into Pakistan of the goods destined for Afghanistan is Pakistan's problem and refused to accept any restrictions on the quantity of goods, although it usually bears no relationship to Afghanistan's population - a condition all landlocked countries fulfil while importing goods via neighbouring states.
He said that Afghanistan allows unrestricted transit of Pakistani cargo, destined for the Central Asian Republics (CARs), and warned that any restrictions placed on Afghanistan-bound cargo would be applied to Pakistani cargo, destined for the CARs. This aggressive Afghan stance defies any explanation except one - US backing.
He rejected Pakistan's request for agreeing on a 'sensitive list' of smuggling-prone items, quota restrictions on Afghan imports based on their consumption in Afghanistan, aligning Afghan import tariffs with those in Pakistan to eliminate smuggling, and collecting import duties on behalf of the Afghan government in Karachi.
All he said was that an Afghanistan-sponsored study by the USAID would shortly determine the scale of smuggling and its impact on both the economies, but (at least for the present) refused to impose any checks on the quantities of smuggling-prone goods that don't reach Afghanistan, although he admitted that both the countries were victims of smuggling.
Instead, he emphasised information exchange on smuggling between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but said nothing about how Afghanistan would penalise smugglers on receiving such data which, surely, is being provided even now. Interestingly enough, he said "if we can eliminate the possibility of offloading of transit goods (implying no Afghan role therein) in Pak territory, there would be no need for a negative list."
That's the level of Afghanistan's concern for Pakistan that must now provide a two-way transit corridor for India-Afghanistan-CAR trade. Interestingly enough, soon after the Pak-Afghan meeting, the Chairman of the US Senate's Armed Forces' Committee visited Pakistan and soon the Indian Foreign Minister would be here to hold 'crucially important' talks - a euphemism for pressure tactics.
The US (courtesy its intelligence network) knows about the havoc Afghan imports of smuggling-prone items (black tea, heavy duty tyres, a wide range of electronic and electrical equipment, fabrics, liquor, etc) have been playing with Pakistan's economy. Had the US taken note of this mess, things wouldn't be as bad as they are.
The US backing for Afghan demands would be shocking because it will imply benefiting Afghanistan and India at Pakistan's cost rather than impressing upon Afghanistan the need for limiting imports to their consumption levels in Afghanistan. As for India as a promoter of regional trade, the US shouldn't ignore its refusal to give Pakistan land route access to Nepal and Bhutan - conduct that also defies the Saarc spirit.
The truth is that Pak-Afghan joint ventures in mineral exploration, road shows there for, and exhibition of Pakistani goods in Kabul were mere sweet talk. The Afghan focus is on forcing Pakistan to allow Indo-Afghan-CARs trade via the Wagah-Torkham land route; according to the Afghan side, materialising any Pak-Afghan joint ventures depends on Pakistan agreeing to set up this transit route.
Pakistan rejected this proposal for obvious reasons that the US and its protégé Afghanistan simply disregard - bad Indo-Pak relations that continue to-date because India looks at Pakistan as a hurdle in its (US-backed?) imperial designs. Only the US can forget the situation on the Indo-Pak borders in 1948, 1965, 1971, 1988 and 1999, and how India helped escalate Pakistan's internal political dissent to a point where the country split.
Pakistan paid an incalculable price for helping Afghanistan and convincing India to comply with the UNSC resolutions on Indian-occupied Kashmir (a battlefield to-date); its economy became stagnant, and its 'allies' began calling it the 'biggest' threat to world peace; the same 'allies' now want Pakistan to fulfil Indo-Afghan wishes without an assurance that the new corridor won't be used for doing more harm to Pakistan.
With India blaming Pakistan for virtually every terrorist act within its borders, ignoring its own mismanagement of the state and with proof of its involvement in terrorism in Pakistan, isn't an internationally sponsored mediation between the two on Kashmir and on sharing the Himalayan water resources imperative for providing India access to the Afghanistan and the CARs via Pakistan? Can't our 'great' allies see this?
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