Abbas Stanekzai, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Taliban group, threatened Pakistan on Wednesday during a meeting in Logar province due to problems in exporting Afghan products. Stanekzai warned that if Pakistan continues to create obstacles in trade routes, Afghanistan could also close the Central Asian transit route to Pakistan.
Referring to the problems faced by Afghan traders during the fruit and vegetable harvest season, the Taliban official said: “Afghanistan is the transit route between Pakistan and Central Asia. We can also take retaliatory measures. We can close our borders and create problems for them. But we don’t want to create problems for our Pakistani Muslim brothers.”
This threat comes as the Torkham crossing, one of the most important border points between the two countries, has been closed several times in the past three years due to border conflicts. Currently, the main route from Peshawar to Torkham is blocked due to local protests in Pakistan, forcing fruit-laden trucks to use alternative rough routes.
Ataulllah Omari, the Taliban’s Minister of Agriculture, had previously reported problems with exporting Afghan fruit to neighboring countries and said that the Taliban was negotiating with Pakistan to facilitate the export of fresh fruits.
These tensions could negatively impact trade relations between the two countries. Official statistics show that the level of trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan has decreased by more than 40 percent since 2015. This is while the Taliban had recently announced important trade agreements with Pakistan.
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