And a long journey ahead
Nawaz Sharif needs to be commended for ordering the reopening of the Pak-Afghan border. The longer than a month closure caused big losses to the business community on both sides of the border. In Afghanistan it also led to shortages of essential food items and medicines causing a rise in their prices and suffering for the common man. That an agreement on opening the border was reached at a meeting hosted by Britain reflects the level of mistrust currently prevailing between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
It is widely understood that the administration in Kabul lacks the capacity to eradicate on its own the several terrorist networks which have gathered in Afghanistan. Instead of harming the terrorists, border closures in fact help them by causing estrangement between governments and the people of the two countries. In the case of Pakistan the closures have moved away business to Iran and Central Asia, thus harming national economy. There is a need to revise the policy of closing borders again and again, as one notes with regret that this has happened about half a dozen times during the last 12 months. Combined with factors that include the arbitrary rise of taxes on fruits and vegetables and the corruption by customs and police officials between Karachi and the Afghan border, bilateral trade has declined significantly from the peak of $2.5 billion in 2010.
The two countries would meet next month in Moscow, where a twelve nation moot would take up the issue of bringing peace to Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the two would do well to hold bilateral talks to review the follow up of action on other important issues they had agreed upon. As the two sides take measures to restore confidence, regional issues too need to be taken up. While Afghanistan needs to remove Pakistan’s apprehensions regarding the use of Afghan territory by India against Pakistan, Islamabad too has to realise that, being a landlocked country, Afghanistan has internationally accepted rights vis-a-vis transit trade that have to be protected.