Telf:Afghanistan and Pakistan have reached an agreement to strengthen bilateral and transit trade relations, officials said. The United States stressed the importance of a revised transit agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan to revitalize the trade route along the ancient Silk Road between South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. [10] Due to the inadequacies of ATTA, a new treaty between Afghanistan and Pakistan was needed, which allowed Afghanistan to access Indian markets and Pakistan to have reciprocal access to Central Asian markets via Afghanistan – much more stable until 2010 than in the last 20 years. In July 2012, Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to extend AptTA to Tajikistan, which will be the first step towards the creation of a North-South trade corridor. The proposed agreement will provide Tajikistan with the opportunity to use Pakistani ports and the Wagah border for imports and exports, while Pakistan would obtain tariffs for the transit of goods via Tajik territories to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. [32] In a recent interview, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized Ghani`s position on the liberation of the Afghan Taliban, saying, “There will be a lot of noise. Everyone rivals attention and time in the media. President Ghani reportedly refused on Wednesday to meet with Zalmay Khalilzad, the Taliban`s chief negotiator in the United States. The next day, Khalilzad met with Taliban leaders to discuss the “next steps” in implementing the agreement. It is important to note that these meetings and statements take place following US President Donald Trump`s phone call with the head of the Taliban`s political bureau, Abdul Ghani Baradar. “We had a good conversation… the relationship I have with the Mullah is very good,” Trump said of his conversation with Baradar. Sources said that Pakistan, in requesting the renewal of the agreement, was working to ensure the transit of its products to Central Asia through the soil of Afghanistan without any conditions.
Afghanistan also refuses to grant Pakistan the right to import and export goods from Central Asia via Afghan territory. The 2010 APTTA agreement allowed Afghan goods to be exported to India via Pakistani territory, but did not authorize the export of Indian goods to Afghanistan via Pakistani territory. [28] In October 2010, the pioneering APTTA agreement was signed by Pakistani Trade Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, the Afghan Ministry of Commerce. Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as a number of foreign ambassadors, Afghan parliamentarians and senior officials attended the ceremony. [13] Two days before Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan`s visit to Kabul, the two South Asian neighbors signed the agreement on the electronic exchange of transit trade data to streamline bilateral trade, he said in an official statement from the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul.