Chaman border set to reopen today after a tense week

Posted on November 21, 2022 at November 21, 2022 by Elsa Imdad 183 0

QUETTA: Pakistan and Afghanistan reached a conditional agreement on Sunday to reopen the Chaman border crossing, more than a week after it was shut down due to Afghan-side firing on Frontier Corps officials at the Friendship Gate.

According to Abdul Hameed Zehri, deputy commissioner of Chaman, the decision to open the border was made during a meeting between Pakistani and Afghan officials.

The civil-military liaison committee of Chaman was informed of the specifics of the negotiations and the decision to open the border, and it concurred that trade and travel would be permitted across it as of Monday.

Officials stated that as a result, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Pakistan Customs immigration offices would also open.

Mr. Zehri claimed that Afghan Taliban representatives voiced their rage and sorrow over the events of November 13 and gave the Pakistani authorities assurances that the “terrorists” responsible would be apprehended and dealt with severely.

Following gunfire from the Afghan side, Pakistan closed the Friendship Gate.

 

(A video of the incident recorded by the Pakistani authorities)

Both parties agreed to take specific action to prevent a similar situation from happening again.

Trade between the two nations through the Friendship Gate has been halted as a result of the border closure since last week. Both sides were trapped with a significant number of trucks carrying Afghan transit trade products and containers carrying import and export goods.

A man entered into Pakistani territory at Friendship Gate from the Afghan border and opened fire on the security forces stationed at the gate, killing one soldier and wounded two others, Chaman DC Zehri said last week while confirming the border’s suspension for an indefinite period. 
The official claimed that shortly after the event, Afghan personnel fired on Pakistani forces, who returned fire, and that the fighting lasted for a while.
The negotiations broke down at that point because Afghan officials refused to turn over those responsible for the shooting, according to official sources. Pakistan border authorities then called an emergency meeting of the Afghan forces and demanded that the armed men who had fired at the Pakistani security personnel be turned over to them. 
In the evening, the exchange of fire restarted and, according to officials, continued intermittently.

Thousands of people cross the Chaman border, some 100 kilometres northwest of Quetta, every day. It is one of the busiest international border crossings. It leads into Wesh town in Kandahar province’s Spin Boldak district to the north on the Afghan side.

Pakistan had previously resisted opening the Friendship Gate for transit trade and passing until the authorities had taken custody of the attackers.

A few days later, Pakistani authorities granted several hundred Afghan citizens who were stuck in Chaman due to the border closure permission to enter their nation from another region on humanitarian grounds and as a gesture of goodwill, taking into account that some of them were patients who had travelled to Pakistan for treatment.

Last week, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry told Reuters that the event was under investigation and that the altercation between border forces from both sides was the result of a “misunderstanding.”

The gunshot at Friendship Gate was not a result of Taliban troops, according to the Afghan border guards.

The officials speculated that “they might be terrorists who were involved in fire.”

 

Reference: Dawn

November 20, 2022

 

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