ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani on Thursday discussed challenges to regional security amid surge in militant violence in Pakistan with his Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi in Tibet, as Kabul’s diplomatic mission in Islamabad objected to a new tax on transit trade items.
Jilani is on a two-day official visit to participate in the Trans-Himalayan Forum for International Cooperation on the invitation of the Chinese authorities.
His meeting with Muttaqi comes at a time when Pakistan announced to start expelling illegal immigrants, mostly Afghan nationals, from next month for security reasons following last week’s suicide attacks targeting religious congregations that claimed more than 60 lives.
While Pakistan recently said Afghan nationals were involved in 14 out of 24 suicide bombings since the beginning of the year, the Taliban administration in Kabul maintained the refugees from their country were not causing Pakistan’s security problems.
“FM @JalilJilani met Afghan Acting FM Amir Khan Muttaqi in Tibet, China,” the foreign office of Pakistan announced in a brief social media post. “FM reaffirmed [Pakistan’s] commitment to further strengthen bilateral ties with [Afghanistan]. Underscored that challenges confronting regional peace & stability be addressed in collaborative spirit [through] collective strategies.”
Pakistan’s foreign office said earlier in the day the country’s policy on Afghan refugees remained unchanged.
“We continue to host 1.4 million Afghan refugees with exemplary generosity and empathy despite resource constraints, and economic challenges,” its spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said during a weekly news briefing. “As the situation in Afghanistan stabilizes, we believe that it is the right time to upscale international efforts to create conditions conducive to the voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees with honor and dignity.”
Baloch maintained Pakistan’s recent decision was not targeted against Afghan refugees, adding it was aimed at regulating illegal aliens residing in Pakistan, irrespective of their nationality.
Meanwhile, the Afghan embassy in Islamabad said in a series of social media posts that Pakistan’s commerce ministry was also creating obstacles in the field of Afghan transit and bilateral trade.
“In addition to imposing 10 percent processing fee on some transit goods, the government of Pakistan has asked Afghan traders for 100 percent bank guarantee on transit cargo, which is beyond the ability of the traders,” it said.
The embassy added that its officials had tried to resolve trade-related issues by taking them up with the Pakistani authorities, but they had only increased.
It urged the government in Islamabad “to remove these obstacles in the Afghan transit sector, so as not to have a negative impact on the commercial and bilateral relations of the two countries.”
Pakistan announced to impose 10 percent processing fee on several items under the Afghan transit trade agreement earlier this week in a step that was viewed as an attempt to stop illegal entry of goods into the country from the neighboring state.
It was also widely reported on Thursday the commerce ministry in Islamabad had banned the export of 212 items to Afghanistan under the transit trade agreement.
However, Afghan officials have objected to these developments while pointing out it is putting bilateral and transit trade under undue pressure.