Pakistan is drawing up plans to tax NATO for using its territory to supply troops in Afghanistan, in retaliation for the recent death of its soldiers in a “friendly fire” incident in Mohmand Agency, The Guardian said in a report on Wednesday. Under the proposal, a transit tax or fee will be imposed on every shipping container sent through Pakistan, senior military and civilian officials told The Guardian. The move follows the death of 24 soldiers shelled by a US helicopter at a checkpoint last month.
The tax is likely to add tens of millions of dollars a year to the cost of the decade-long war. It is thought that the government would levy around $1,500 (£970) per shipping container sent through Pakistan, along with separate charges for each fuel tanker that goes through to Afghanistan. Islamabad suspended the movement of NATO supplies to the landlocked country altogether after the deaths on November 26. The tax on NATO supplies would provide Pakistan with a face-saving way of reopening the route. Following the deaths at the border, Pakistan also terminated the American use of a small airbase, Shamsi, and boycotted an international conference on Afghanistan.The international coalition in Afghanistan has benefited from free transit of goods through Pakistan for nearly a decade, under agreements forged with Islamabad soon after the overthrow of the Taliban regime.
A senior Pakistani official said the free transit of US and NATO military supplies was allowed under two agreements signed in 2002, when dictator Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf was ruling the country.“Under the agreement, NATO got to use our transport infrastructure for no cost, but what we got in return, we don’t know. It is high time to revisit the agreement,” said the official, who did not want to be named, as the new policy has not yet been announced. “The agreement appears to be one-sided.”The levy would also confirm the dramatically changing nature of Pakistan’s ties with its western partners, from a strategic alliance to a transactional relationship, with deep suspicions on both sides.