India Set to Transport Relief Aid to Afghanistan via Pakistan

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
February 14, 2022

ISLAMABAD — India will begin sending 50,000 tons of wheat to Afghanistan through Pakistan next week, in rare cooperation between the two rival nations to help millions of Afghans facing severe food shortages.

Islamabad agreed in November to New Delhi’s request to allow the supply of wheat through its territory, and the two sides have now sorted out the modalities of the transportation, Pakistani officials confirmed Monday.

The arrangement calls for Afghan trucks to collect the grain from India and take the consignment through Pakistan’s Wagha border to Afghanistan’s eastern city of Jalalabad.

Officials said the first convoy of trucks loaded with wheat is scheduled to depart the Indian border town of Attari on February 22 en route to the Afghan city via the northwestern Pakistani border crossing of Torkham.

Indian officials said the humanitarian assistance will be handed over to the United Nations World Food Program in Jalalabad for distribution to Afghan families under a “landmark” agreement the world body signed with New Delhi on Friday.

“The task before us is enormous, and every bit counts. India’s commitment for 50,000 metric tons is extremely important, especially in times of the pandemic, and we remain hopeful that the Indian government will extend its generosity for even more grain stocks when possible,” Bishow Parajuli, WFP’s India country director, told The Hindu newspaper.

Pakistan closed the land route for all bilateral trade with India and downgraded an already fragile bilateral relationship in August 2019 to protest New Delhi’s decision to end the semi-autonomous status for the Indian-ruled part of the disputed Kashmir region.

Bilateral tensions have since deteriorated and Islamabad, which controls the rest of the Himalayan territory, is demanding New Delhi restore Kashmir’s status before official contacts can resume.

Islamabad says it is opening the land route only as an exception to deal with the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where U.N. officials estimate around 24 million people are in need of urgent relief aid, with several million of them a step away from famine.

India had pledged in October last year to supply 50,000 tons of wheat to Afghanistan; however, extended talks with Pakistan over modalities of the transportation, elections in Indian Punjab and several challenges involving the use of a large number of trucks reportedly delayed the shipment.

Incentives will not change the Taliban

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Taliban militants (file photo)

The Hill: The United States and other democracies should not fall for the Taliban’s ruses. The Taliban’s conduct as Afghanistan’s rulers so far has not earned it the right to international legitimacy or recognition. Unfreezing Afghanistan’s assets or routing aid through the Taliban will only end up funding a rogue regime and its terrorist allies. Click here to read more (external link).

Imran Khan says the world has no alternative but to recognize the IEA

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Imran Khan

Ariana: Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Sunday the world needs to start engaging with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) as there is no other alternative to the IEA in Afghanistan. He said the “only option the world has right now is to engage with the Taliban (IEA) for things to move forward.” Click here to read more (external link).

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Pakistan Intends to Cooperate with Afghanistan in Eradicating Polio

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8am: Pakistan’s Special Assistant on National Health Services, Dr. Faisal Sultan, has called for more Pakistan-Afghanistan cooperation to eradicate the poliovirus, saying the two countries can work together to get rid of the virus. “Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where the poliovirus still exists,” he said. “Pakistan wants to help Afghanistan in health services.” Click here to read more (external link).

Karzai: US Money Seizure ‘Atrocity’ Against Afghans

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Hamid Karzai

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
February 13, 2022

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s former president, Hamid Karzai, joined the Taliban rulers Sunday in urging the United States to review its decision to allow half of the roughly $7 billion in his country’s foreign frozen assets to be reserved for families of victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“The people of Afghanistan share the pain of the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the tragedy of September 11. We commiserate with them,” Karzai told a news conference in Kabul.

However, the “Afghan people are as much victims as those families who lost their lives,” Karzai said. “Withholding money or seizing money from the people of Afghanistan in that name is unjust and unfair and an atrocity against the Afghan people.”

Da Afghanistan Bank, that country’s central bank, had funds on deposit at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The money has been frozen since August, when the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban seized control of the country.

Critics say the U.S. freezing of Afghan funds has worsened an already bad humanitarian situation in the conflict-torn country and pushed its foreign-aid dependent economy to the brink of collapse.

On Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order calling on banks to set aside $3.5 billion of the frozen assets in a trust fund slated for humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan. The remaining funds, $3.5 billion, would stay in the United States to finance payments from lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorism that are still working their way through the courts.

“I ask the U.S. courts to do the opposite, to return the Afghan money back to the Afghan people. This money does not belong to any government. Much of this money was collected during my time in office. This is the property of the Afghan people,” Karzai said.

Karzai served as president for 13 years starting December 2001, shortly after the U.S.-led foreign military invasion ousted the then-Taliban government from power for harboring al-Qaida planners of the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States.

Washington and the global community at large have not recognized the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

U.S. officials have said Biden’s executive order also “is designed to provide a path for the funds to reach the people of Afghanistan, while keeping them out of the hands of the Taliban’s malicious actors.”

Taliban authorities condemned the unilateral U.S. move, saying it “shows the lowest level of morality and humanity of a country and a nation.”

Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban permanent representative-designate to the United Nations, on Sunday reiterated his government’s call for Washington to release the Afghan funds, saying using them for any other purpose was unacceptable.

“It is only used for implementation of monetary policy, facilitation of trade and boosting financial system of the country,” Shaheen argued.

“It is never intended to be used for any other purpose rather than that. Its freezing or disbursement unilaterally for any other purpose is injustice and not acceptable to the people of Afghanistan,” the senior Taliban official wrote on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi traveled to Doha on Sunday for meetings with representatives of European Union, Gulf countries, and foreign diplomatic missions to Afghanistan operating out of the capital of Qatar after the fall of Kabul to the Islamist group last summer. Taliban sources said Muttaqi would also raise in the meetings Biden’s controversial order on frozen Afghan funds.

Protesters gathered in the Afghan capital Saturday, asking for financial compensation for the tens of thousands of Afghans killed during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

The U.S. withdrawal last August ended the nearly 20-year war. but United Nations and other international relief groups say Afghanistan faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, which stems from more than four decades of conflict and natural calamities.

More than half of the country’s poverty-stricken population, or an estimated 24 million Afghans, face an acute food shortage and some one million children under age 5 could die from hunger by the end of this year, according to U.N. estimates following the U.S. withdrawal from the country.

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