KARACHI: The
humiliating treatment meted out to Mr Sartaj Aziz by Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani and Narendra Modi is shocking, to say the least. Mr Ghani conveniently
forgot how much Afghanistan owes to Pakistan, which was at the forefront in the
fight to oust the Soviet Union from his country — while India supported the
Soviet occupation. Pakistan has hosted three million Afghan refugees for over
30 years. Mr Ghani displayed his servitude to Mr Modi by refusing to accept
Pakistan’s generous offer of $500 million to help in the reconstruction of
Afghanistan, saying that Pakistan should use the money to curb terrorism. What
about the Indian aid of one billion dollars to his country? Shouldn’t he have
advised the Indian premier to use that money to provide toilets to poor
Indians?
The time has come to get tough with
Afghanistan. We have a trade transit agreement with that country which is being
used to flood Pakistan with goods meant for Afghanistan, causing many of our
industries to collapse and threatening many others with closure. Hosting
refugees has resulted in arms and drug smuggling, along with terrorism which
has cost the lives of over 50,000 Pakistanis. We should start by revising the
Afghan Transit Trade Agreement and impose the same conditions on Afghanistan as
India has imposed on Nepal, recovering full custom duty at Indian seaports on
all Nepalese imports and refunding the duty amount to Nepal at the end of the
financial year. Naturally, Nepalese importers are forced to buy most of their
requirements from India, and to import only those goods which are not
manufactured in India. We should also arrange for the immediate repatriation of
Afghan refugees from Pakistan. Only then will Mr Ashraf Ghani realise how much
his country owes to Pakistan.
Shakir
Lakhani
Published
in The Express Tribune, December 8th, 2016.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1256777/heart-asia-conference/
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