Pakistan successfully closed a key northwestern border crossing with Afghanistan to truck drivers on Saturday, Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban stated.
Noor Mohammad Hanif, director of Info and Tradition division in Afghanistan’s japanese Nangarhar province stated that officers on the Torkham started asking for passports and visas from Afghan drivers.
Truckers have for years been in a position to cross the border with out paperwork so they typically do not need them.
Hanif stated that, in response, Afghanistan is now asking Pakistani drivers for passports and visas.
In a separate assertion, the Nangarhar governor’s workplace stated that officers from either side are in talks to resolve the issue, and a call will likely be made quickly, it added.
The Torkham border crossing has been closed a lot of occasions in latest months, together with in September when it was shut for 9 days attributable to clashes between border forces.
On Saturday, dozens of vans carrying perishable gadgets, together with greens and fruits, waited on both sides of the border for the reopening of the crossing, which is an important industrial artery and a commerce path to Central Asian nations for Pakistan.
Pakistan is anxious in regards to the presence in Afghanistan of the Pakistani Taliban, which is a detailed ally of the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan has stated many Pakistani Taliban leaders and fighters have discovered sanctuary in Afghanistan and have been emboldened to hold out extra assaults on safety forces in Pakistan.
The Afghan Taliban authorities insists it doesn’t permit the Pakistani Taliban to make use of its soil to launch assaults in Pakistan.
This comes simply days after considered one of Pakistan’s most senior politicians, Fazlur Rehman, whose Jamiat Ulema Islam celebration is understood for backing the Afghan Taliban, visited Kabul in an try to cut back lingering tensions between the 2 nations.
Rehman was the primary senior Pakistani politician to go to Kabul for the reason that Taliban seized energy in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops withdrew from the nation after 20 years of battle.
Tensions additionally exist round Pakistan’s ongoing expulsion of Afghans.
Pakistan has deported greater than half one million Afghans with out legitimate papers in latest months. Pakistan has lengthy hosted about 1.7 million Afghans, most of whom fled throughout the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation. Greater than half one million fled Afghanistan when the Taliban seized energy.
