Afghan traders are asking Pakistan to release thousands of containers filled with imports stranded at the southern seaport of Karachi after authorities blocked their transit claiming the goods are being smuggled back into Pakistan after they arrive in Afghanistan.
Yunus Mohmand, the acting head of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce, said on November 16 that Pakistan's actions are unjust. Islamabad claims it is losing millions of dollars in tax revenue because of the illegal smuggling as the goods are sent to Kabul duty-free.
“Creating such illegal obstacles for trade is having a terrible effect on the economy of both countries,” Mohmand told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, noting that new additional taxes on the goods would crush traders.
Mohmand said that the imports contain electronics and perishable foodstuffs.
On November 14, the minister for the Taliban's de facto Ministry for Industry and Commerce, Nooruddin Azizi, raised the issue with Jalil Abbas Jilani, Pakistan's caretaker foreign minister.
"Hundreds of these containers have been parked for several months, while some have been stuck for more than a year,” a Taliban diplomat in the northwestern city of Peshawar told the AFP news agency.
He said Kabul is seeking to lessen the losses of Afghan importers.
Pakistan's blockade of Afghan transit goods is one of several critical issues plaguing relations with neighboring Afghanistan.
Since early October, more than 300,000 Afghan refugees have returned to their country after Islamabad announced a drive to deport more than 1.7 million undocumented migrants, most of whom are Afghan.
Afghans and ruling Taliban officials have accused Pakistani police and other law enforcement agencies of widespread abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, bribes, and harassment of Afghans across the country.
To open alternative international trade routes for Afghanistan, the Taliban regime's deputy prime minister, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, secured access to Iran’s southeastern Chabahar Port.
Since the turn of the century, successive Afghan governments have sought to establish Chabahar as an alternative port to Karachi for their land-locked nation.