FOCUS
The recent statement of Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani is a case in point in this regard. Speaking to the British Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Owen Jenkins, Ghani threatened to block Pakistan’s transit trade to Central Asia, if Islamabad did not allow Afghan trucks to cross into India.
Currently, Afghan trucks have to offload goods at Wagah border in Lahore, which are then taken on hand-pushed carts up to the Indian border crossing point of Attari, from where they are reloaded on Indian trucks for onward transportation.
Kabul has long demanded Islamabad to let its trucks cross into India and in return allow New Delhi to transport its goods destined for Afghanistan through its territory.
India too has been making similar pleas to Pakistan, but Islamabad has persistently balked at these suggestions for security reasons, forcing India to use the longer and expensive route via Dubai to transport its goods to Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s denial to India to use its territory for trade to India has effectively stymied Indian efforts to fully exploit its trade potential with Afghanistan and beyond.
In response to Pakistan’s refusal, the Afghan government has stalled ratification of important bilateral agreements with Islamabad, like lowering of tariff and granting each other status of preferential trade partners.
In 2014, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to boost bilateral trade to over five billion dollars by 2017 from the current 1.6 billion dollars, but that promise has not turned into reality because of mutual mistrust as well as exclusion of India from the transit trade agreement.
During his first visit to India after coming to power in 2014, Ghani had reiterated his demand for India’s involvement in the transit trade, which was rejected by Pakistan.
His latest call for expanding transit agreement to include India came amidst growing tensions between Islamabad and Kabul over their suspicions that the other side is not doing enough to rein in militants operating and orchestrating cross-border attacks into their territory.
Ghani’s statement also came just weeks before his visit to India which is apparently aimed at winning favor with Pakistan’s main regional rival.
India has offered one billion dollars in economic aid to Afghanistan as Ghani met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the start of his two-day visit to New Delhi. India has already invested nearly two billion dollars in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
During his meeting with the British envoy, Ghani also said that the country has several transit routes for imports and exports of its goods to the outside world.
He was clearly referring to the India-funded Chabahar sea port of Iran, which Kabul, Tehran, and New Delhi want to use as a regional trade hub by circumventing Pakistan. During his recent visit to India, Ghani made his intention more explicit.
“Why are we concerned that a country (Pakistan) can block two great nations (India and Afghanistan) from trade,” Ghani said, while delivering a talk in New Delhi. “Let’s organise it then. Anyway, Chabahar will end the monopoly.”
The Afghan president knows that what he is saying is easier said than done.
Everyone knows that most of Afghan exports are fresh fruits which need to be transported to their destination as quickly as possible, failing which they could perish.
Transportation of these perishable commodities through Chabahar involves a sea voyage that is more expensive and time consuming and has greater risk of spoilage of fruit consignments.
Indian businessmen and leaders are also mindful of the fact that Pakistan offers the shortest and cost effective land route. It is something that was acknowledged by Modi himself during his visit to Afghanistan in December last year
Speaking to the Afghan parliament in Kabul, he expressed the hope that Pakistan would become a bridge between South Asia, Afghanistan and beyond.
“I hope that the day will come soon when energy from Central Asia will power prosperity in our region; when a Kabuliwala can once again come across easily to win Indian hearts; when we in India can relish the wonderful fruits of Afghanistan; when Afghans do not have to pay an enormous price to buy their favorite products from India.”
This dream could only be realised in its true spirit, if Pakistan’s overland route is fully exploited for regional trade.
Reduction of political tensions and increase of regional interconnectivity is as important for Pakistan as it is for its neighbours.
The potential of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is touted as a regional game changer by the Pakistani leaders, could only be fully exploited if this project is connected to road and rail networks across South, West and Central Asia. The most important challenge for Pakistan and other regional countries is how to mitigate their mutual mistrust to pave the way for intra-regional economic cooperation.
These countries need to learn lessons from China, which did not allow its political disputes with neighbours to become a stumbling block in its economic progress, its outreach to the region and the world at large.
For instance, China has a long-running border dispute with India which led to a bloody war between them in 1962. China recently, blocked India’s attempt to crash into the prestigious Nuclear Supplier Group as well. But these political and security issues did not stop Beijing from forging economic ties with its uneasy neighbour.China is one of India’s top trading partners despite their political differences.
During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s landmark visit to India in 2014, the two sides signed a raft of agreements, pledging Chinese investment worth 20 billion dollars in India.
The agreements were signed just days after border tensions flared between them in the Ladakh region.
There was a fear that the standoff could derail the talks but it never happened, showing China’s commitment that political and security issues could not deter it from safeguarding its economic and commercial interests in the region.
Can South Asian nations follow this model? Only time will tell.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad
