How Indian goods are reaching Kabul via Pakistan

Indian products have been reaching Afghanistan through Pakistan despite Islamabad having denied permission for the use of its territory under the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement, a media report said on Monday.

According to English daily Dawn, goods manufactured in India are reaching Kabul through Pakistan under the tags of International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

According to the deal inked between Islamabad and Kabul on December 20 last year, Afghan trucks were allowed to operate up to the Karachi port while Pakistani trucks could move across Afghanistan towards Central Asia. However, Islamabad refused to grant permission to India to carry on its trade activities to Afghanistan through the country.

The original Afghan Transit Trade Agreement allowed India to export its goods to Afghanistan through Pakistan, an additional clause was inserted after the 1965 Pakistan-India war in the agreement, barring the use of Pakistani territory for Indian exports to Afghanistan.

'Soon after the US attacked Afghanistan, the military regime of General Pervez Musharraf offered a special concession whereby Isaf and Nato got a blanket cover for importing their cargoes through Pakistani ports and airports. The government issued the Customs General Order (CGO) 12/2002 for the purpose,' the Dawn reported. 

'Such goods were given customs duty exemption and Pakistani customs officials were neither allowed nor they had any mechanism to check details of imported items and had to accept the information provided by the countries in the international alliance. The present government made no changes in the arrangement introduced by the Musharraf regime,' it added. 

While agreeing with the daily's findings, Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Hina Rabbani Khar said the movement of consignments for Isaf and Nato to Afghanistan was not covered by the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA) 1965, which is a bilateral accord.

Moreover, Nato countries seldom provided detailed description of the imported goods by them, she added.