PESHAWAR: Bilateral trade and business activities at the key Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan remained suspended for the third consecutive day on Monday, a senior police officer and customs agent confirmed, with several trucks stranded on both sides due to a latest row between the two countries over documents for commercial truck drivers.
Located in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber District and Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, the Torkham border crossing is significant for trade, transit, and people traveling between the two neighboring countries.
The crossing has remained closed for trade since Friday night in the latest row over document rules for commercial vehicle drivers crossing the border. Crossings between the two countries have been temporarily shut in recent months after Islamabad last year launched a massive operation against undocumented Afghans living in Pakistan and tightened document requirements for Afghans entering the country.
“The [Torkham] border has been closed for the last three days for transit goods and heavy vehicles,” Naheed Khan, a police officer at the border, told Arab News. “But pedestrians’ movement continues on both sides of the border.”
Khan said the border was closed on Friday after Pakistani authorities restricted Afghan truck drivers and their assistants from entering the country without passports and visa documents.
“Still the issue hasn’t been taken up for discussion on a high level,” he added.
An Afghan customs clearing agent said Taliban border officials also barred Pakistani trucks from entering Afghanistan, escalating tensions between the neighboring countries’ border officials.
Hajji Usman, a member of the Nangarhar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said Torkham and Ghulam Khan, the two border crossings located in Pakistan’s Khyber and North Waziristan tribal districts, have remained closed since Friday as Pakistani authorities had imposed fresh restrictions on Afghan truck drivers from entering the country.
Long queues of vehicles loaded with perishable items such as fruits and vegetables remain stranded on both sides of the border, inflicting heavy losses on traders and both countries’ exchequer, Usman said.
“We don’t know why both sides fail to address this critical issue once and for all,” he told Arab News. “Look, today’s war isn’t fought with weapons and ammunition but you have to fight if you are economically strong. Virtually, this Torkham border is like the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of traders and businessmen constantly,” Usman added.
Asghar Ali, a Pakistani customs clearing agent at Torkham, said trade activities were at a standstill amid fears the border could remain shut for weeks.
“Even some truckers want to divert their trucks loaded with perishable items back to Peshawar for safe storage because the border could remain shut for long,” Ali told Arab News.
He said the border’s abrupt closure had caused trucks loaded with cement, oranges and vegetables to remain stranded on both sides as most drivers and their helpers did not possess valid passports and visas.
“Traders, businessmen and even both governments are at a loss,” Ali said. “There is always uncertainty among traders and transporters about this border which discourages traders.”
Pakistan and Afghanistan have had increasingly fraught relations in recent months, with Islamabad accusing the Taliban government of failing to root out militants staging attacks on Pakistan from Afghan soil, a claim Kabul denies.
The Torkham crossing was frequently shut last year, with tensions sometimes spilling over into armed clashes between border guards across the frontier.
