[Indian officials say Islamabad is
dragging its feet on a request of transit for 50,000 tons of wheat to
Afghanistan, where nine million people are on the brink of starvation.]
By Mujib Mashal
Despite agreeing to help Afghanistan,
the souring relationship between India and Pakistan is getting in the way of
50,000 tons of Indian wheat reaching Afghanistan, officials say, in the latest
sign that regional rivalries that have haunted the fragile country for decades
continue to affect even the delivery of lifesaving assistance.
Indian officials say Pakistan is
dragging its feet on approving their request, made seven weeks ago, to move
wheat and medicine through 400 miles of its territory to reach Afghans in need.
But Prime Minister Imran Khan of
Pakistan, in a meeting on Friday with the Taliban’s foreign minister, said his
government would “favorably” consider the Afghan request to allow the Indian
wheat. Pakistani officials would not comment on why their response to India was
taking so long, or when the transit could be granted.
The World Food Program says that
only 5 percent of the Afghan population has enough to eat, and that Afghanistan
was already short on wheat by 2.5 million tons this year because of drought.
Conflict and an economic collapse
after the Taliban
took over in August have only aggravated the problem. About 23 million
people in Afghanistan face acute food insecurity, and nine million are on the
brink of starvation, according to the World Food Program, a United Nations
agency.
“The humanitarian imperative must
be separated from political discussions for the sake of the millions of Afghans
in desperate need of food and emergency assistance as the harsh winter quickly
engulfs the country,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty, who heads the World Food Program’s
operations in Afghanistan.
In September, donors pledged more
than $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan. But food needs alone require more than
$200 million a month, and aid organizations are concerned about a funding
shortage in the spring, when the number of people who are affected by hunger is
predicted to peak. The wheat donation from India could fulfill 10 percent of
the 500,000 tons of wheat the World Food Program requires for the period of
January to May.
Over the past two decades, as
droughts led to repeated grain shortages in Afghanistan, India, which produces
a grain surplus, often came to its aid. But relations between Pakistan and
India have been consistently tense including over the disputed Kashmir region,
and they plunged to a new low in recent years after deadly militant attacks in
India were blamed on support from Pakistan.
India has recently largely used the
Chabahar Port in Iran to send wheat shipments to Afghanistan, a longer and
costlier route. It has also turned to compacting wheat into high-protein
biscuits to significantly reduce the tonnage.
The Taliban’s return to power has
further complicated the transit issues. Pakistan, where the Taliban found a
haven during their 20-year insurgency, is now in many ways playing gatekeeper
for Afghanistan.
While many countries in the region
had prepared for the possibility that the Taliban would return to power by
hedging their bets with the group before the United States withdrew from
Afghanistan, India continued to put its weight only behind the Afghan
government. The sudden collapse of that government, with the Afghan
president fleeing, left India with little leverage in a country where it
had invested heavily over the past two decades.
Even as India struggles to navigate
the reality of the new Taliban-led Afghanistan, it responded to the U.N.
agency’s appeal for assistance by preparing 50,000 tons of wheat. On Oct. 7,
the Indian government delivered a letter to the Pakistani authorities
highlighting the urgency of the matter and requesting help in “expeditiously”
granting transit for wheat and medicine to go by road to Afghanistan, a senior
Indian official said.
Much of India’s grain comes from
its north, particularly the state of Punjab, where the border
crossing of Wagah is. Afghanistan is just a 400-mile drive across
Pakistan from that crossing.
In the seven weeks since India made
its request for transit, calls for humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan have
escalated, including at forums attended by officials from India and Pakistan.
On the sidelines of an event last month in Moscow, Indian envoys met with
Taliban representatives, and statements by the Taliban suggested that the offer
of humanitarian assistance had been discussed.
But there was no response from
Pakistan to India’s request. Pakistani diplomatic officials acknowledged to The
New York Times that they had received the request and said that they were
considering it, but would not comment on how long it could take.
Pakistan’s first public
acknowledgment of the wheat came not in response to India, but to Taliban
officials asking Pakistan to allow its transit. The timing spoke only to the
region’s divides at a moment of humanitarian crisis.
Pakistan and China had declined to
attend the meeting of regional security chiefs in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Instead, Pakistan hosted the Taliban foreign minister on the same day, as well
as representatives from China, Russia and the United States the next day, for
its own talks.
Pakistani officials said the
Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, had asked Mr. Khan to allow
transit for the wheat.
In a statement, Mr. Khan’s office
said he “would favorably consider the request by Afghan brothers,” but did not
make clear when the transit for wheat could be granted.
Salman Masood contributed
reporting from Islamabad.
