January 14, 2009	Wednesday	Muharram 16, 1430

PESHAWAR, Jan 13: Traders from the NWFP have opposed the proposed Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement and demanded its revision in accordance with interests of Pakistan.

Their reservations over the agreement had been communicated to the World Bank, which was currently coordinating the signing of a new agreement between the two countries, Mohammad Ishaq, vice-president of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Dawn here on Tuesday.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are reviewing the draft of the new agreement, which will replace the existing Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA) signed in 1965 by the two countries for facilitating regional trade via land routes.

According to Mr Ishaq, who represented NWFP traders in a consultation organised by the World Bank over the draft agreement the other day in Islamabad, said: “The agreement protects the interests of Afghanistan, not of Pakistan.”

He argued that even the language and wording of the agreement were in favour of Afghanistan. “If you look at the contents you will find guarantees to be ensured by Pakistan, whereas there are no such provisions or bindings for Afghanistan in the said agreement,” he said.

The proposed agreement, he said, spoke about international transport carriers with the involvement of a third party, from where Afghan traders would import their goods.

This clause was not clear because on the one hand it would bring multinational companies into the transit business and on the other, it might offer access to Indian goods in Afghanistan via land routes of Pakistan, he maintained.

In a nutshell, he claimed, the proposed agreement presented only Afghan version and it did not care about the interests of Pakistan, adding that Pakistan should prepare its own draft agreement so that a deal could be finalised on equal terms.

He suggested that seminars and debates should be conducted across the country over the proposed agreement because it would deprive the country of taking advantage of its geographical location.

Officials of the World Bank, he claimed, had accepted the SCCI proposal for wide-ranging debates over the issue and assured of holding a seminar in Peshawar soon to incorporate views of local businessmen into the agreement.

Pakistan and Afghanistan had signed their first transit agreement on March 2, 1965, to facilitate their trade via Chaman-Spin Boldak and Torkham-Jalalabad routes.

Initially, the agreement was signed for five years with the option of further extension of a similar tenure. Article 11 of the ATTA reads that the contracting parties will meet and consult each other once a year to review the working of the agreement.

But neither the agreement was extended nor it was revised despite the lapse of more than four decades, and on Nov 18 last year Afghanistan handed over the draft of a new agreement to Pakistan’s Embassy in Kabul.