Pakistan Allows Afghan Trucks to Take 50000MT Indian Wheat Via Its Land Route

Islamabad notified New Delhi that it will allow "Afghan trucks" to bring wheat and life-saving medications to Afghanistan, two months after India asked Pakistan to send supplies to Afghanistan via land route. 

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry informed Indian ambassadors in Islamabad of the decision.

"With a view to further facilitate Pakistan's decision to allow transportation of 50,000 MT of wheat and life-saving medicines from India to Afghanistan via Wagah border on an exceptional basis for humanitarian purposes, it has been decided to also allow the use of Afghan trucks for transportation from Wagah border to Torkham," according to a statement from Pakistan's Foreign Ministry.

This "demonstrates the Government of Pakistan's commitment and seriousness in facilitating the proposed humanitarian assistance," it stated. "The Indian government was also asked to take the required steps to expedite the delivery of humanitarian supplies to Afghanistan," the statement continued.

New Delhi has not issued an official response to Pakistan's decision, but a spokeswoman for the Ministry of External Affairs has stated multiple times that humanitarian aid cannot be conditional.

Officials estimate that transporting 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan will necessitate the use of 5,000 vehicles via Pakistan. According to the logistics, the wheat would have to be unloaded and reloaded into Afghan trucks at Zero Point on the Wagah-Attari border.

At the moment, Pakistan only allows Afghanistan to sell goods to India, and no other two-way trade is permitted across the border. India has signaled a desire to offer humanitarian aid to the Afghan people on multiple occasions, however, it has cautioned against endorsing the Taliban administration.

India had approached Pakistan in October to provide food grains to Afghanistan via land route. Imran Khan, Pakistan's prime minister, told a visiting Taliban group in Islamabad last month that his government would "favorably examine" the request by "Afghan brothers" for India to send wheat through Pakistan "on an extraordinary basis" for "humanitarian causes." Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban's foreign minister, had received the same message from Khan.

India also provided 75,000 metric tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan last year, according to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who spoke at a United Nations High-Level Meeting on the Humanitarian Situation in Afghanistan in September.