{"id":6364,"date":"2019-03-18T20:00:52","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T17:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=6364"},"modified":"2019-03-27T04:29:13","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T01:29:13","slug":"thanks-to-chabahar-afghanistan-is-not-landlocked-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/thanks-to-chabahar-afghanistan-is-not-landlocked-anymore\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanks to Chabahar, \u2018Afghanistan Is Not Landlocked Anymore\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s Chabahar port has successfully connected Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea. The Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, traveled with\u00a0 a<\/a> convoy of 23 trucks<\/a>\u00a0loaded with cargo weighing 570 tons to the border city of Zarang where he hailed the \u201chealthy cooperation between India, Iran, and Afghanistan.\u201d He sent a message to Pakistan, a neighbor and his country\u2019s largest trading partner, when he said, \u201cAfghanistan is not landlocked anymore.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In October 2017, New Delhi\u00a0shipped 1.1 million tons of wheat <\/a>to<\/a> Kabul<\/a>\u00a0via Chabahar port, which is managed by\u00a0India Ports Global Limited. The Modi government accomplished an incredible feat by convincing the Trump administration to exempt from US sanctions Chabahar port and India\u2019s oil imports from Iran. The exemption expires in April unless renewed by the United States for another period of three or six months.<\/p>\n

New Delhi can succeed in winning the approval of US President Donald Trump to extend its exemption for\u00a0three reasons<\/a>. First, the United States\u2019 objective is to counter China\u2019s outreach to the Arabian Sea through Beijing\u2019s development of Pakistan\u2019s Gwadar port and Chabahar port fits nicely into realizing this objective. Second, the Trump administration wants to isolate Pakistan and by strengthening economic ties between New Delhi and Kabul, it will lower Afghanistan\u2019s economic dependence on Islamabad. Third, India will be helping to build \u00a0Afghanistan\u2019s economy as well as\u00a0 connecting Kabul to the region and this will naturally lower the war-torn country\u2019s reliance on the United States, with Washington itself overstretched financially across the world. Despite these reasons, it is uncertain whether India will get another exemption from the United States vis a vis Iran. Some US officials have spoken about reducing the exemption period to three months instead of six months, whereas others are totally against any extension.<\/p>\n

At first sight, the Kabul-Chabahar route leaves much to be desired. A key challenge for\u00a0 Afghan traders is their inability to work with\u00a0 Iranian banks<\/a>, as they are blacklisted and traders risk the imposition of US sanctions if they deal with them. \u00a0The other challenges are more logistical and bureaucratic, as well as security oriented. The security woes alone can be nightmarish not just due to Afghanistan\u2019s domestic circumstances but equally due to Iran\u2019s. While the talks between the US and the Taliban are ongoing, there exists no ceasefire on the ground. With trade activity picking up,\u00a0 saboteurs won\u2019t ignore foreign laborers as well as the haulage of goods worth millions of dollars. Additionally, the\u00a0escalating activity\u00a0of Baloch militants in Iran\u2019s Sistan-Balochistan province provides a stern warning to those using this trade route. The marginally guarded Afghan-Iran frontier remains a key channel for goods, drugs and weapons to be smuggled as well as for the movement\u00a0of militants.<\/p>\n

India has built the road to Zaranj which will require regular maintenance because of heavy traffic and the harsh climate to which the region is subject. The bridge connecting Iran and Afghanistan is not fit for heavy traffic and is also too narrow. The Ghani government has not kept up its pledge for removing\u00a0the logistical bottleneck<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0the Zaranj-Delaram highway.<\/p>\n

Corruption is reportedly rampant at the crossing point, promoting illicit businesses and undermining the core purpose of boosting Afghanistan\u2019s trade.\u00a0 There is no high-tech infrastructure along this route, allowing for the possibility of lucrative narcotic and weapon smuggling. Also, inflated visa fees and the unavailability of lodging facilities or fuel stations may add to the failure of trade prospects. For truck drivers, the route is far more cumbersome than the historic alternative to Pakistan via Torkhum and Chaman. Recently, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan directed\u00a0 his respective institutions to take the necessary steps for\u00a0round-the-clock operability<\/a>\u00a0of border crossings with Afghanistan. Due to border tensions, the trade route had to once be\u00a0closed for 50 days<\/a>. Not only did traders from both sides suffer, consumers in Afghanistan also faced a shortage of supplies. Iran has so far \u00a0resisted the Afghan demand to keep the crossing open for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Afghanistan also remains connected to\u00a0Iran, China, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan<\/a> via railroad. Except in the case of sanctions-marred Iran, the rail link can become an extremely vital logistical artery with the Central Asian countries. Regardless of\u00a0 President Trump\u2019s curbs on Iran,\u00a0India has been working on a\u00a0$1.6 billion railway track<\/a>\u00a0connecting Zahedan to Chabahar. Meanwhile, China has been proactively working to accomplish its Gwadar-Kashgar road and railway link in lieu of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).<\/p>\n

India\u2019s exemption from US sanctions against Iran has not really translated into any relief for Afghanistan except for India benefitting by encircling Pakistan and constraining China from investing in Iran. India-Iran-Afghanistan trade via Chabahar will face serious challenges of high costs as well as an irregularity in the value and frequency of shipments. Meanwhile, the shorter and more secure Gwadar route will not only feature Pakistan\u2019s involvement but also China\u2019s, which exercises far more significant leverage over Afghanistan than India due to its heavy investment and non-interventionist policy. After a possible US-Taliban deal and the upcoming Afghan elections, Kabul can use Beijing as a facilitator vis-a-vis Islamabad to iron out bilateral differences and longstanding concerns with its neighbor.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding strained US-Iran relations and the hefty Chinese and Gulf investment in Gwadar as well as in CPEC, the trilateral trade corridor carries colossal significance for its stakeholders. For India, Chabahar holds the prospect of extending into lucrative Central Asian markets. For Iran, Chabahar partially eliminates her economic isolation, while for Afghanistan the quest for an alternate link to coastal waters and the world is fulfilled through Chabahar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s Chabahar port has successfully connected Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea. The Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, traveled with\u00a0 a convoy of 23 trucks\u00a0loaded with cargo weighing 570 tons to the border city of Zarang where he hailed the \u201chealthy cooperation between India, Iran, and Afghanistan.\u201d He sent a message to Pakistan, a neighbor and his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6364"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6392,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6364\/revisions\/6392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}