pakistani342
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@A-Team @Zarvan
@That Guy @Sher Malang
@Sabawoon_Noorzai
My comment to HE Janan Mozazai, outgoing Afghan ambassador to Pakistan (the original post is here):
First of all, let me say how much Pakistanis appreciate your hard work and public diplomacy in trying to bridge our two estranged people: the Afghans and Pakistanis.
.
However, what puzzles us Pakistanis is that we see ourselves as having disproportionately born Afghans’ burdens, for example:
1. We have provided the Afghan nation access to the sea in an uninterrupted fashion, except for some exceptions, for almost seven decades — one cannot blame us Pakistanis for asking the question, for how long have Afghans allowed Pakistanis similar access to their neighbors?
2. Further we Pakistanis are victims of drugs that your country produces and have been so for decades now
3. We have hosted millions of Afghans, including the poorest of the poor Afghans for decades, when the richest countries of the world today (in Europe, Australia and the Americas) are unwilling to accept thousands of your country educated middle class
4. Every day, 50,000 or so Afghans cross into Pakistan without any visas for medical treatment, education and other basic needs
.
So I hope you will forgive us Pakistanis for being less than charitable with your legal arguments of “principles of sovereign equality and reciprocity”.
.
The textbooks may teach us that relationships between Afghanistan and Pakistan should be governed by some amorphous abstract concepts found in thick legal tomes, yet what Afghans fail to understand is that any franchise extended to the Afghan people by the Pakistani people (and vice-a-versa) will be based on how we, the two peoples, view each other. And in my humble opinion the Pakistani people who have been absent landlords of their accounts vis-a-vis Afghans will one day wake up and will demand an accounting of that ledger. Just imagine if based on the “principles of sovereign equality and reciprocity”, Pakistanis disallow 50,000 Afghans from making the daily trek to Pakistan — what will be the outcome? Just imagine if by using the justification of the expulsion of Afghan refugees by the rich countries of Europe and the Western world, the Pakistani people expel the poor Afghans from Pakistan. Just imagine if the Pakistanis decide to deny you access to our ports based on security grounds (just as Israel denies access to Gaza). So do imagine: where would Afghans stand?
.
I would humbly urge you to at the very least raise this aspect in the gilded halls of Afghan intelligentsia and elites. There is still time, for if the Pakistani people do demand a settling of accounts, penny for penny, pound for pound, I fear that the Afghan people may be found in complete default.
.
Pleasant tidings, and good wishes from your estranged brothereren.
... Excerpts HE Janan Mosazai's post below:
The finalisation and implementation of this agreement will happen as soon as we can extend it to India, too, on the basis of the principles of sovereign equality and reciprocity, which will once again be a win-win situation for all four countries, mainly Pakistan and Afghanistan as transit countries. This is not the case yet.
Just to provide some background, during the fifth Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Coordinating Authority or APTTCA meeting in Islamabad in January this year, the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan decided that Afghanistan registered trucks will be allowed to carry export cargo to Wahga on a Letter of Guarantee issued by the Ministry of Transportation of Afghanistan, and that Afghan export cargo will no longer be restricted to fruits and vegetables. It was further agreed that the government of Pakistan would make all the necessary amendments to its rules to include all Afghan export cargo to India through Wahga.
There is perfect legal basis and mutual agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan for this. Specifically speaking, APTTA Section IX, Article 33a, page 17 is clear that Pakistan will provide national treatment to Afghan exports. This is what Article 33a says, and I quote, “rules and procedures affecting transit traffic treatment applied to transporters from the other Contracting Party shall be no less favourable than applied to their own like services and service providers,” end quote. The existing situation is that Pakistani trucks are allowed to unload cargo at the Integrated Check Post (ICP) in Attari and return with Indian goods that are allowed to be imported through Wahga to Pakistan.
At the beginning of this year, we once again requested the government of Pakistan to apply the existing APTTA national treatment clause to Afghan trucks and allow them to unload Afghan export cargo at ICP Attari and bring back Indian goods on their return trip, starting with those Indian goods and products that are allowed to be imported into Pakistan. In other words, Afghanistan is not asking for any exceptional treatment in doing trade with India through Pakistan; we would like to see the exiting transit trade agreement between us implemented in full — both in letter and spirit. Unfortunately, this is not the case today.
@That Guy @Sher Malang
@Sabawoon_Noorzai
My comment to HE Janan Mozazai, outgoing Afghan ambassador to Pakistan (the original post is here):
First of all, let me say how much Pakistanis appreciate your hard work and public diplomacy in trying to bridge our two estranged people: the Afghans and Pakistanis.
.
However, what puzzles us Pakistanis is that we see ourselves as having disproportionately born Afghans’ burdens, for example:
1. We have provided the Afghan nation access to the sea in an uninterrupted fashion, except for some exceptions, for almost seven decades — one cannot blame us Pakistanis for asking the question, for how long have Afghans allowed Pakistanis similar access to their neighbors?
2. Further we Pakistanis are victims of drugs that your country produces and have been so for decades now
3. We have hosted millions of Afghans, including the poorest of the poor Afghans for decades, when the richest countries of the world today (in Europe, Australia and the Americas) are unwilling to accept thousands of your country educated middle class
4. Every day, 50,000 or so Afghans cross into Pakistan without any visas for medical treatment, education and other basic needs
.
So I hope you will forgive us Pakistanis for being less than charitable with your legal arguments of “principles of sovereign equality and reciprocity”.
.
The textbooks may teach us that relationships between Afghanistan and Pakistan should be governed by some amorphous abstract concepts found in thick legal tomes, yet what Afghans fail to understand is that any franchise extended to the Afghan people by the Pakistani people (and vice-a-versa) will be based on how we, the two peoples, view each other. And in my humble opinion the Pakistani people who have been absent landlords of their accounts vis-a-vis Afghans will one day wake up and will demand an accounting of that ledger. Just imagine if based on the “principles of sovereign equality and reciprocity”, Pakistanis disallow 50,000 Afghans from making the daily trek to Pakistan — what will be the outcome? Just imagine if by using the justification of the expulsion of Afghan refugees by the rich countries of Europe and the Western world, the Pakistani people expel the poor Afghans from Pakistan. Just imagine if the Pakistanis decide to deny you access to our ports based on security grounds (just as Israel denies access to Gaza). So do imagine: where would Afghans stand?
.
I would humbly urge you to at the very least raise this aspect in the gilded halls of Afghan intelligentsia and elites. There is still time, for if the Pakistani people do demand a settling of accounts, penny for penny, pound for pound, I fear that the Afghan people may be found in complete default.
.
Pleasant tidings, and good wishes from your estranged brothereren.
... Excerpts HE Janan Mosazai's post below:
The finalisation and implementation of this agreement will happen as soon as we can extend it to India, too, on the basis of the principles of sovereign equality and reciprocity, which will once again be a win-win situation for all four countries, mainly Pakistan and Afghanistan as transit countries. This is not the case yet.
Just to provide some background, during the fifth Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Coordinating Authority or APTTCA meeting in Islamabad in January this year, the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan decided that Afghanistan registered trucks will be allowed to carry export cargo to Wahga on a Letter of Guarantee issued by the Ministry of Transportation of Afghanistan, and that Afghan export cargo will no longer be restricted to fruits and vegetables. It was further agreed that the government of Pakistan would make all the necessary amendments to its rules to include all Afghan export cargo to India through Wahga.
There is perfect legal basis and mutual agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan for this. Specifically speaking, APTTA Section IX, Article 33a, page 17 is clear that Pakistan will provide national treatment to Afghan exports. This is what Article 33a says, and I quote, “rules and procedures affecting transit traffic treatment applied to transporters from the other Contracting Party shall be no less favourable than applied to their own like services and service providers,” end quote. The existing situation is that Pakistani trucks are allowed to unload cargo at the Integrated Check Post (ICP) in Attari and return with Indian goods that are allowed to be imported through Wahga to Pakistan.
At the beginning of this year, we once again requested the government of Pakistan to apply the existing APTTA national treatment clause to Afghan trucks and allow them to unload Afghan export cargo at ICP Attari and bring back Indian goods on their return trip, starting with those Indian goods and products that are allowed to be imported into Pakistan. In other words, Afghanistan is not asking for any exceptional treatment in doing trade with India through Pakistan; we would like to see the exiting transit trade agreement between us implemented in full — both in letter and spirit. Unfortunately, this is not the case today.
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