Azizi to Islamabad: Release Afghan import containers

PESHAWAR (Pajhwok): Kabul has asked Islamabad to release thousands of containers of imports stuck at the Karachi Port.

Islamabad claims it has lost millions of dollars in taxes because the imports go duty-free from its ports to the neighbouring country before they are smuggled back into Pakistan.

Kabul says more than 3,000 Afghanistan-bound containers have been stuck at the Karachi port amid demand for more tax and duty payments, inflicting massive losses on importers.

High-end electronics, machine parts, chemicals and textiles are among the imports that Afghanistan wants to be released immediately.

At a meeting in Islamabad, Afghan Commerce Minister Nooruddin Azizi met Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani conferred on bilateral transit problems, said the Afghan embassy.

Meanwhile, an official of the Afghan consulate in Peshawar said “Hundreds of these containers have been parked for several months.

“Some have been stuck for more than a year. The goods inside are spoiling and the traders are suffering losses,” Dawn quoted the consulate official as saying.

Azizi and Jilani also discussed how the thousands of Afghan citizens Pakistan is expelling could transfer cash and other assets to their homeland, according to the embassy.

The Pakistan government has deported hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans over the past few days. Ignoring calls for a halt to the mass deportations, Islamabad continues to expel the refugees.

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