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Pakistan to allow India to send wheat to Afghanistan

Newsmantra — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 05:33:25 +0000

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that his government will allow India to send a humanitarian shipment of 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat to neighbouring Afghanistan through its territory after finalisation of the transit modalities.

Khan, who chaired the first Apex Committee meeting of the newly established Afghanistan Inter-ministerial Coordination Cell (AICC) in Islamabad, also took the opportunity to remind the international community of the collective responsibility to support Afghanistan to avoid a humanitarian crisis.

During the meeting, Khan announced Pakistan’s decision to allow the 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat India has offered to provide Afghanistan as humanitarian assistance to go through Pakistan as soon as modalities are finalised with the Indian side, state-run Radio Pakistan reported.

Currently, Pakistan only allows Afghanistan to export goods to India but doesn’t allow any other two-way trade through the border crossing.

Last month, India announced 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat for Afghanistan as humanitarian assistance and requested Pakistan to ship the food grain via the Wagah border.

Afghanistan’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi had also requested Prime Minister Khan to allow India to transport wheat via Pakistan, suggesting that the Taliban government was willing to accept the humanitarian assistance from India.

The Prime Minister] announced Pakistan’s decision to allow the 50,000 MT of wheat India has offered to provide Afghanistan as humanitarian assistance to go through Pakistan as soon as modalities are finalised with the Indian side,” the Pakistan PM’s office said, adding that Pakistan has also decided to facilitate “the return of Afghan patients who had gone to India for medical treatment and are stuck there”.

MEA yet to respond to announcement

The Ministry of External Affairs did not respond to the announcement from Pakistan. On November 11, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said India was looking at all possibilities to transfer the aid “but there have been difficulties due to lack of unimpeded access”.

Asked why India had not sent the aid through the Chabahar port in Iran to the Afghan border, the route it had employed in the last few years, officials declined to comment, but suggested that the route would prove too circuitous given the immediate need in Afghanistan.

The offer of wheat and other medical supplies was made formally to the Taliban regime by a Ministry of External Affairs delegation that attended the Moscow format conference in Russia and met Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi on October 20.

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Multiple Blasts Rock Kabul

Newsmantra — Sat, 21 Nov 2020 06:37:46 +0000

In the Central Kabul several rockets landed near the heavily fortified Green Zone where many embassies and international firms are based, officials said.

There were no immediate reports of any casualties but the explosions occurred in densely populated parts of the Afghan capital.

Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz confirmed “multiple rockets” had been fired, while photos on social media appeared to show damage to an external wall at a large medical complex.

The interior ministry said two small “sticky bomb” explosions had been reported earlier Saturday morning, including one that hit a police car, killing one policeman and wounding three others.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for blasts, which come amid an ongoing wave of violence that has wrought carnage across Afghanistan in recent months.

The Taliban have pledged not to attack urban areas under the terms of a US withdrawal deal, but the Kabul administration has blamed the insurgents or their proxies for other recent attacks in Kabul.

Taliban and Afghan government negotiators launched peace talks in Doha in September but progress has been slow.

Officials told AFP on Friday however that a breakthrough was expected to be announced in the coming days, and the US State Department announced late Friday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would meet negotiators from the Taliban and the Afghan government in Doha.

Trump has repeatedly vowed to end “forever wars,” including in Afghanistan, America’s longest-ever conflict that began with an invasion to dislodge the Taliban following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

President-elect Joe Biden, in a rare point of agreement, also advocates winding down the Afghanistan war although analysts believe he will not be as wedded to a quick timetable.

Earlier this week, the Pentagon said it would soon pull some 2,000 troops out of Afghanistan, speeding up the timeline established in a February agreement between Washington and the Taliban that envisions a full US withdrawal in mid-2021.

In the past six months, the Taliban carried out 53 suicide attacks and 1,250 explosions that left 1,210 civilians dead and 2,500 wounded, interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said this week

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Afghanistan To Release 5000 Taliban Prisoners

Newsmantra — Wed, 11 Mar 2020 06:44:46 +0000

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is set to release 5000 Taliban prisoners in coming days to pave the way for direct talks with the hardline insurgent group that are aimed at ending the 18-year-long war in Afghanistan.

The two-page decree – which was signed by Ghani and will be made public later by his office – said that all released Taliban prisoners will have to provide “a written guarantee to not return to the battlefield.”

The decree lays out details about how the prisoners will be released in a systematic manner, a process that it says will begin in four days.

“The process of releasing 1,500 Taliban prisoners will be completed within 15 days, with 100 prisoners walking out of Afghan jails every day,” according to the decree.

Talks between the Taliban and Afghan government to end the war will run parallel with the release, the decree said.

If the talks make progress, the government said it will release a further 500 Taliban prisoners every two weeks until a total of 5,000 Taliban prisoners have been freed.

The decree said that the Taliban will have to stick to its commitment to a reduction in violence during this period and beyond.

The release of the prisoners is part of a confidence-building measure to pave the way for the opening of direct talks between the government and the insurgents, after talks with both sides and the United States individually.

Commanders of the hardline insurgent Islamist group have sent vehicles to be ready to collect the fighters in a prisoner exchange and said they will honour the deal by handing over 1,000 government troops.

It was unclear whether prisoners would be released from other prisons aside from Bagram, a detention facility located next to a U.S. military base.

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