Pakistan’s recent efforts for promotion of trade relations with Afghanistan are also a part of that long-time series of cooperation.
by Ali Sukhanver
All missiles, all nuclear bombs and all guns and cannons are going to lose their nuisance importance very soon in near future; these hazardous tools would be replaced by rice, wheat, medicine, energy resources and above all by water. In short the aims and objectives would remain the same but modes and methods, tools and devices would be changed. Simply the scarcity of grain and water would be enough for wiping off a population of thousands and thousands of people. To counter the expected horrible situation, now countries and nations will have to form new groups and new alliances particularly the neighbouring ones. Keeping in view the future scenario and feeling the horrible expected situation of tomorrow, the government of Pakistan has started acting upon a very well-calculated plan of strengthening trade-relationship with the neighbouring countries. The decision of launching a luxury bus service between Pakistan and Afghanistan is one of the important steps being taken in this regard.
The Pak-Afghan Bus Service is expected to start by the end of this August. A delegation of Pakistan’s officials recently visited Kabul and held meetings with the acting Afghan ministers for commerce and foreign affairs along with other senior officials. It was a three-day visit from 18th July to 20th July 2022. Pakistan’s delegation included senior officials of different ministries and businessmen. Both sides agreed to continue efforts to promote trade relations between the two countries. The two countries also agreed to increase bilateral trade by allowing free movement of trucks and other goods carrying vehicles. There would be two routes for the proposed bus-service; from Peshawar to Jalalabad and from Quetta to Kandahar. The officials also approved the implementation of the Temporary Admission Document which allows free movement of bilateral trade vehicles and prevents the loading and unloading of goods at the border crossing points. It was also decided that more efforts would be done for making border crossing points more efficient. This step would provide ease in process of early clearance of trade and transit traffic. It is something very encouraging that when Pakistani officials were having talks in Kabul, a delegation from Afghan business community was on its visit to Pakistan. The delegation was there to participate in a round-table conference of the stakeholders of Pak-Afghan trade. The basic purpose of that round-table conference was to explore new avenues for trade, provide support to both governments in policy formulation and above all suggest how to remove trade barriers. Hopefully, things would get better and better with the passage of time and this betterment would directly benefit the people of both countries.
It is a bitter reality that Afghanistan has been facing a lot of hardships for the last many decades because of foreign military and socio-political interference. The poisonous game of guns and bullets got new speed after the Twin-Towers incident. In the name of the so-called War on Terror, the whole fibre of the Afghan society was ruthlessly ‘smashed’. Thousands of innocent Afghans lost their lives and countless got severely injured. Even today, in the streets of Afghanistan, one finds a large number of people moving with the help of walking sticks and artificial limbs. For the last three decades, Afghanistan has been facing the most pitiable ‘human tragedy’ and more tragic is the fact that those who are responsible for all this disaster are behaving as if they are strangers to all that is happening there. It makes them no difference if the people of Afghanistan are facing a severe shortage of food, water, and medicine along with worst economic conditions. It is always no one but Pakistan standing by its Afghan brothers at every time of need. Pakistan’s recent efforts to promote trade relations with Afghanistan are also a part of that long-time series of cooperation. Certainly, there are a few elements which feel very uneasy rather disturbed whenever Pakistan steps forward and tries to strengthen its relations with the neighbouring counties. Be it China or Iran or Afghanistan, whenever Pakistan tries to extend its hands of cooperation towards these countries for the betterment of the region, these hostile elements become active; the result of their activeness comes in form of killing of Chinese, Iranian and Afghani citizens in Pakistan. It is being feared that the expected plan of proposed bus service would be sabotaged by the elements hostile to Pakistan as they had ever been trying to sabotage the projects like Karakoram Highway, Gwadar and the CPEC. Now the Pak-Afghan Bus Service would be their next target. Pakistan will have to keep a very vigilant eye on all such nefarious activities of the forces hostile to its peace and prosperity.
Post a Comment