KABUL: For years just after dawn, during harsh winters and hot summers, people would jostle to join the long line outside Iran’s embassy in Kabul to get a visa.
The rush prompted Tehran to impose restrictions for Afghan travelers, such as financial guarantees and return flight tickets.
It would take at least a week for the luckiest ones to get their visa approved, although there were hundreds of others who would enter the neighboring country through illegal and hazardous means overland.
They fled to Iran because of war, poverty, for a family reunion or used it as transit for making it to Turkey and beyond to Europe.
But US financial and economic sanctions on Iran in August have seen a dramatic drop in the numbers of Afghans wishing to travel to the Islamic republic.
Tehran has eased the visa restrictions to persuade Afghans wishing to go there, according to residents.
Afghans who used to go to Iran, legally or illegally for labor, are returning in big numbers as have some Afghan refugees who lived there for decades, because of the devaluation of Iran’s currency.
Afghanistan’s economy has also been suffering because Iran is a major trade partner, with billions of dollars of goods and fuel worth of imports coming from Tehran, according to traders.
The effects of the sanctions are felt in Afghanistan’s western region particularly Herat, the country’s second largest city.
“Unfortunately, the sanctions have had a direct impact in the western region both in terms of imports, exports and transit,” Saad Khatebi, the chief of Herat’s chambers of commerce told Arab News by phone.
Prices of basic foodstuffs, construction and raw materials have jumped as imports from Iran have ceased and traders are forced to supply them from other parts of the world, he said.
For a while, the sanctions became a business opportunity for some Afghans in the western region since they could smuggle dollars in cash to Iran.
But civil society activist Waheed Paiman said Kabul, under pressure from the US for a month, has barred Afghans from withdrawing dollars from their bank accounts. They have to instead cash their dollars with Afghanis, the country’s currency that has been unstable because of political and security threats.
“This is a far more serious problem for the traders just because of the sanctions on Iran, they cannot withdraw their dollar deposits. People are concerned,” he told Arab News.
Khatebi said the sanctions, restrictions on dollar accounts, bullying by strongmen, the threat of criminal groups and the recent imposition of tax by the Taliban on goods in the western region, may force traders to leave Herat.
Some analysts said the sanctions may provoke Tehran to increase its alleged assistance for Taliban militants in their campaign against US military presence in Afghanistan.
The sanctions have also affected the flow of trade through Chabahar port in Iran which was established two years ago and allows landlocked Afghanistan to have sea access sea for imports and exports.
The Indian-backed port complex is still being developed as part of a new transportation corridor for land-locked Afghanistan that could potentially open the way for millions of dollars in trade and cut its dependence on Pakistan, its sometimes-hostile neighbor.
Ahmad Farhad Majidi, a lawmaker from Herat, said Afghans “hope that on the basis of their needs and constraints, the US will make Afghanistan an exception from its sanctions package.”
“Tens of our money dealers have gone bankrupt, factories have suffered, people have lost jobs and that in itself will have an impact on the security of Herat and the trust of the people,” he told Arab News.
Haroon Chakhansuri, a spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, refused to comment on the impact of sanctions or restrictions Kabul has imposed on dollar deposits in Herat.
But he told Arab News that Ghani discussed the matter with a visiting top US State Department official on Sunday.