July 14, 2002	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 3, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, July 13: Commerce minister Abdul Razak Dawood on Saturday confirmed that Pakistan allowed passage to Indian buses across its territory to Afghanistan but expressed complete ignorance about transit transport of 10,000 tons of biscuits.

“It is correct but the clearance was perhaps given by the ministry of defence and not by the ministry of commerce”, he said when asked whether a caravan of over 50 Indian Tata buses had crossed over Pakistan to Afghanistan in May this year.

He, however, said that he did not remember to confirm how many buses were in the convoy. He said he was not aware that consignments of 10,000 tons of Indian biscuits were also transported through Wagah border to Kabul.

He did not subscribe journalists’ worry that this biscuits would be available in Pakistani market in the coming days and behind this opportunity India could flood more consignments here and hit the local biscuit manufacturing.

Government officials however claimed that the biscuits were an Indian donation to the Afghan people under the world food programme (WFP) recently and were carried all the way from Wagah border to Kabul through Torkham but in WFP trucks.

The minister said that there was no change in Pakistan’s policy about trade between Afghanistan and India through its soil unless core issues were settled. “Our old policy is still holding the ground and there is no change...And there is nothing like consideration on a case to case basis”, he said.

The minister was asked to clarify whether there was any change in Pakistan’s stated policy of not allowing transit facility to Indian products meant for Afghanistan or whether these were dealt with on a case to case basis.

Razak Dawood promised to come up with all the details about transportation of Indian buses and biscuits that were given transit facility at a time India had severed all kinds of relations with Pakistan.