India-Pakistan trade ties boost as relations improve; Pakistan summons its envoy to US Ambassador Haqqani to Islamabad to question him over memo row; Pakistan signs agreements with Turkmenistan for cooperation in various sectors
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Whatsapp
  • Linkedin
  • Print

    • In a significant development in India Pakistan relations, Pakistan has taken further steps towards normal trade and travel ties with India. The two countries’ trade secretaries agreed Pakistan will replace a limited list of items India can sell across the border with a short list of items that cannot be traded, officials noted. Both countries were represented by their trade and commerce ministers with Anand Sharma from India and Zafar Mehmood from Pakistan. “We have turned the corner,” Pakistan’s Trade Secretary Zafar Mehmood said at a joint news conference with his Indian counterpart in Delhi. In another development, on Tuesday, India and Pakistan agreed to push for easing of visa rules that severely restrict travel across the heavily armed border. They will look at the feasibility of electricity trading and will open a second road trading post by February. Under the existing practice, both countries require businessmen to register with police on their arrival and regularly report to them. Visas are issued only for one city.1

    Meanwhile, reports noted that the Pakistan government has summoned Ambassador Husain Haqqani to Islamabad to question him about any role he may have played in the growing controversy, which was first disclosed in an Oct. 10 column in the Financial Times, said Farhatullah Babar, a Pakistani presidential spokesman. Mansoor Ijaz, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, said in the column that a senior Pakistani diplomat asked him on May 9, a week after US commandos killed bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town, to pass a message from President Asif Ali Zardari to the US asking for help. Ijaz did not name the diplomat. Zardari was reportedly worried that the US raid had so humiliated his government, which did not know about it beforehand, that the military may stage a coup, something that has happened repeatedly in Pakistan’s history, said Ijaz. The memo sent to Adm. Mike Mullen, the top US military officer at the time, reportedly offered to curb support to militants from Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the ISI, in exchange for American assistance, Ijaz said. However, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry has called the Financial Times column ”a total fabrication.”. 2

    In other developments, Pakistan and Turkmenistan have signed agreements and MoU on trade, energy, media and culture. One of the agreements relates to the $7.6 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project under which Pakistan will get 1.3 billion cubic feet per day of gas. The TAPI accord is a follow-up to an inter-government agreement signed by Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and India in December last year. 3

    Top