A high-level delegation led by the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce, Abdul Razak Dawood, was scheduled to meet with the Afghan Minister of Commerce at the Torkham border today, which has been canceled due to unknown reasons.
Talking to the media after the Senate Standing Committee on Commerce at the Parliament House on Monday, Razak Dawood said that the Pak-Afghan Trade talks have been postponed at the request of the Afghan side. “They have requested us to postpone the meetings for some days, and we agreed to their request. It’s no big deal if the talks are delayed for a couple of weeks,” he said.
On a question related to the increasing interaction over trade relations with Russia, Dawood said that the Russian side has agreed to start negotiations over increasing trade, and initially, we will have an online meeting, where we will discuss banking channels, trucking issues, and other regulatory affairs.
The adviser did not give a definitive response to questions regarding the resumption of trade with India. In a response to a question on the opening of trade with India, the adviser replied, “Let’s see.”
The important meeting between Pakistan and Afghanistan sides at the Torkham border was arranged to witness cross border movement of pedestrians and vehicles.
The other agenda of the meeting was to discuss important matters related to the smooth movement of people and patients across the border, increase in timings of border crossing points, issuance of temporary admission documents, the establishment of joint border infrastructure, training of Afghan nominees for trade-related capacity building courses, and smooth crossing of humanitarian help to Afghanistan.
The time frame for re-initiating the stalled Torkham-Jalalabad road project and the start of luxury bus service between Peshawar-Jalalabad and Quetta-Kandhar was also scheduled to be discussed.
