Pakistan to allow Afghan trucks to ferry Indian wheat to Afghanistan

NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan seemed close to breaking the deadlock over delivery of 50,000 MT of Indian wheat to Afghanistan with Islamabad announcing on Friday it had conveyed to India its consent to the proposed use of Afghan trucks for transporting the grain.

While India wanted Indian or Afghan trucks to carry the humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, Islamabad had been insisting that India use Pakistani trucks operating under the UN banner to move aid from the Attari-Wagah border to Pakistan’s Torkham border crossing with Afghanistan.

The proposal to deliver 50,000 MT to drought-stricken Afghanistan and the NSA-level conference chaired by Ajit Doval last month are the 2 most important initiatives taken by India in its efforts to remain on a solid footing after the return of the Taliban to Kabul on August 15 this year. The government has been helped by the fact that the Taliban have done nothing so far to compound India’s insecurities and have, in fact, taken up with Pakistan the need to expedite aid from India.

The supply through Attari-Wagah, apart from offering a template for regional cooperation in South Asia, can also perhaps help the two countries lay the ghost of 2002 when Pakistan rejected the same proposal by India for delivering aid to Afghanistan.

Pakistan said in a statement on Friday that with a view to facilitate its decision to allow transportation of Indian wheat and life-saving medicines to Afghanistan via Wagah on an "exceptional basis" for humanitarian purposes, it had decided to allow the use of Afghan trucks for transportation from Wagah to Torkham. The same was conveyed to the Indian high commission in Islamabad on Friday. The exercise will apparently require thousands of trucks to ferry aid over a period of 30 days.

"This demonstrates the commitment and seriousness of the Government of Pakistan to facilitate the proposed humanitarian assistance. The Indian government was also urged to proceed quickly to take necessary steps to expeditiously undertake the delivery of the humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan," said the Pakistan foreign ministry.

The government said in Parliament this week that India’s special relationship with the Afghan people and UNSC Resolution 2593 (passed under India’s presidency) would continue to guide India’s approach to Afghanistan. "In this endeavour, India has committed to provide 50,000 MT of wheat and life-saving drugs to the Afghan people as humanitarian assistance," it said, in response to a written question in Rajya Sabha.

The significance of unhindered and unimpeded humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan was also underlined at the NSA conference in November. According to the government, the 8 countries that participated agreed on the need to extend humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, accepted the central role of the UN, emphasized the necessity of a truly representative and inclusive government in Afghanistan and reiterated that Afghan territory should not become home to terror groups.