India slams Pakistan for blocking Indo-Afghan trade

Asserting that the ‘fangs of terrorism’ recognise no borders, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar said, “Peace is essential to development; terrorism is anathema to development.” Addressing a meeting here on ‘Regional Integration and Prosperity’ at the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, Akbar said, “The scale of terrorism and violence unleashed against Afghanistan is of a magnitude that simply does not allow for easy project implementation, efficient delivery of assistance or the rapid inflow of investments into an economy that has huge resources and obvious potential.” He stated that the international community ‘must ensure security’ if it wants stability and economic development in Afghanistan. 

India has offered a special facility at the Attari border for Afghan products coming to India via Pakistan, he said at the meet also attended by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. “Unfortunately, this access has been blocked for political reasons by Pakistan. Nations cannot become walls aborting a trade and culture that is as old as written history, and as powerful as the lore etched in common memory,” he said amid heightened Indo-Pak tensions. Akbar said, however, India will continue to work with Afghanistan for assured and reliable access for Afghanistan’s products to India’s markets through land, sea and air.