Pakistan and Afghanistan have pledged to enhance bilateral trade and agreed to initiate two massive regional infrastructure projects, which would be an extension in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). A Joint Economic Commission of the two countries agreed to launch an energy corridor to bring 2000 megawatt electricity from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan and start work on a road project connecting Herat-Khuzdar-Gwadar. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, while addressing joint press conference along with his Afghan counterpart Eklil Ahmad Hakimi, said that both the sides reaffirmed the commitment to enhance the trade volume between the two countries to $5 billion by the end of 2017. Current level of trade volume between two sides is around $2-2.5billion. Dar said that construction of Torkham-Jalalabad road, Rehman Baba School and Nishtar Kidney Centre are already on track. “Apart from the economic and trade issues, the security issues would also remain on top of the agenda of Pakistan and Afghanistan. We both, Pakistan and Afghanistan are committed to bring peace in the region by eliminating terrorism,” the minister added. Kabul has long demanded access to New Delhi for its trucks, as well as permission to carry commercial cargoes back. India too has long asked for overland access to Kabul from the Wagah border. The matter remains stuck due to Pakistani fears that such connectivity could be the means of expanding the Indian presence in Afghanistan, with security implications for Pakistan. The deep irony here is that greater regional connectivity is the best guarantor of regional security, while at the same time it is perceived as a potentially destabilising element. Given the extreme reluctance of the government in India to engage with Pakistan at the moment, it appears that hopes for a breakthrough in the near future in the matter of overland transit trade between Afghanistan and India are dim. But the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan goes beyond India, and so does the dialogue coming out of the JEC sessions. Talks to advance the import of electricity and natural gas from Central Asia to Pakistan appear to have made much more progress than the question of transit trade, but thus far the projects in question — Casa 1000 and Tapi — also have large security-related question marks hanging over them.The success of these projects is closely linked to that of the reconciliation process in Afghanistan. And once again, the stakes that are being held hostage by security considerations are far too large to ignore since the energy surpluses of Central Asia are a natural solution to the energy deficits of South Asia. Crucial to the logjam is the fact that both India and Pakistan feel they can get what they want without engaging the other, a perception that has the potential to freeze the status quo indefinitely into the future.
pk.shafaqna.com
