ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Friday the country would finish border fencing with Afghanistan with the consent of the administration in the neighboring state.
Pakistan started fencing about 2,620 kilometers of its porous border with Afghanistan in March 2017 after facing multiple attacks from militant groups on the other side of the border.
Officials maintained border fencing would bring down instances of cross-border violence in Pakistan, though the project became contentious between the two countries.
“We have completed fencing some 2,600 kilometers and the remaining 21 kilometers will be done with the consent of our brothers [in Kabul],” Ahmed said while addressing a news conference in the federal capital.
Pakistan’s civil-military leadership says the country has managed to fortify much of the Pak-Afghan by digging trenches and building the fence despite Kabul’s protestations.
However, the issue was once again highlighted after some social media videos showed Taliban fighters purportedly uprooting a portion of the fence with trucks, claiming it had been built inside the Afghan territory.
Pakistan’s foreign office raised the issue with the Taliban administration, making the two sides agree to address any complications through “diplomatic channels.”
Earlier this week, Afghanistan’s acting envoy to Pakistan Sardar Ahmed Khan Shakib told Arab News in an exclusive interview that any decision on the Pak-Afghan border would be taken by the people of his country.
IMF-backed bills
The interior minister also told the media the passage of the finance and central bank autonomy bills from parliament would help improve the country’s fragile currency and investments in the coming days.
The National Assembly of Pakistan on Thursday passed the two bills with majority vote amid protest by opposition parties.
The government has now imposed a uniform 17 percent general sales tax and withdrawn tax exemptions on certain items through its Rs350 billion supplementary finance bill.
The legislative process was carried out to ensure that Pakistan’s sixth review of the $6 billion Extended Fund Facility got clearance from the International Monetary Fund’s executive board.
The IMF was originally scheduled to review Pakistan’s progress on January 12 in its board meeting to release a $1 billion tranche after the country’s completion of the pre-requisites which also included autonomy for the State Bank of Pakistan.
However, it postponed the review until the end of the month due to a delay in the passage of the two bills.
“No one goes to the IMF happily, but this had become a compulsion under the existing circumstances” the interior minister said. “This will help improve [the value of] our rupee [against the US dollar] and investments.”
Listing the government’s economic achievements in the last three years, Rashid said all economic indicators were showing progress and the country was heading in the right direction.
Pakistan has availed 23 IMF loan programs that are valued to be around $38 billion in the last seven years to support its fragile economy. The current administration of the country decided to seek help from the international lender after facing a balance of payments crisis amid increasing imports and rising trade deficit.
“The real issue of this nation is economic and fiscal,” the minister said.
The opposition parties have criticized the government for introducing the bills in parliament, saying they would compromise the country’s economic independence and sovereignty.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, a former prime minister and senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, said the government had passed the bills in a rush which would prove detrimental to the country’s economy.
“The IMF should know that these bills will be withdrawn,” he said on Friday while talking to the media in Islamabad. “These bills will benefit the IMF, not Pakistan.”