AT the weekly news briefing, the Foreign Office spokesperson on Thursday, said Pakistan highlighted its two concerns vis-à-vis the Afghan Government – continuation of terrorist activities from Afghan soil and misuse of Afghan Transit Trade facility. Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch regretted that the transit trade facility was grossly being misused and also that terrorist attacks from across the western border are deepening tension between the two brotherly countries.
Pakistan was asking nothing extraordinary from the Afghan Government as under the international law Afghanistan has a responsibility to take action against those using its soil for terrorist activities against other countries. Pakistan’s complaints in this regard are not unsubstantiated as it has provided documentary proof of presence of TTP elements on its soil and their anti-Pakistan activities. However, despite verbal assurances, the Taliban Government is not willing to take practical steps to prevent terrorist attacks against Pakistan from its soil, strengthening the perception that the Kabul Government considers TTP as its asset. Similarly, Pakistan has all along been demonstrating its sincerity towards the wellbeing of the Afghan people by extending lavish transit trade facility but the Afghan side never reciprocated these sentiments as it preferred closing its eyes towards smuggling of the goods imported under this facility back to Pakistan, causing huge economic losses to the country. It is also strange that, on one hand, the Afghan Government underlines respect for sovereignty but on the other hand it has problems with the measures aimed at promoting this noble cause. It is objecting to border control measures including erection of barbed wire as well as the crackdown against smuggling of goods and currency. Pakistan has legitimate concerns that need to be addressed by the Afghan side for the sake of good neighbourly relations, the responsibility for which devolves on both sides and not just on Pakistan.
