Islamabad, Pakistan: The year 2024 brought clear-headed Pakistan’s Afghan Policy that is based on the realities that Pakistan is facing.
It has become a proven fact that Afghanistan prefers Fitna al-Kharijites (the official name of TTP terrorists) over Pakistan.
Although Pakistan’s Foreign Office is still shy to speak on realities, the spokesperson of the Pakistan Army Lt. Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry has categorically indicated that if Afghanistan keeps preferring terrorists over its relations with Pakistan then Pakistan will treat Afghanistan as a terrorist state should be dealt. that is harboring terrorism and importing the same to Pakistan. In simple words “Status Quo is No More acceptable”.
Pakistan has been calling on Afghanistan to control the infiltration of terrorists from its soil to Pakistan that have been killing innocent citizens of Pakistan as well as martyring security personnel. However, Afghanistan is not changing its strategy and it seems that it is using terrorism as leverage for getting benefits from Pakistan. Beyond any iota of doubt, Afghanistan is using terrorism as a strategy and tool to build pressure on Pakistan to allow smuggling, not send illegal Afghans back to Afghanistan, and even recognize the interim government of Afghanistan.
The year 2024 started with a terrible suicide bombing in the Police lines mosque such kind of terrorism continued the whole year.
Surely the state of Pakistan has acknowledged that it has mutated relations with “Afghan brothers” who always snub any genuine criticisms against them from Islamabad therefore in the last one and half years, Pakistan has been fixing what was missing. The value of the Pakistani rupee, as well as the Stock Exchange, continues to stabilize due to a strict crackdown on smugglers currency hoarders and grain markets, traders and businessmen now express their confidence in the recovery of the market while believing that stabilization of currency is not artificial but rather purely a result of steps being taken by the government that had been demanded by the traders and businessmen.
Traders have been raising concerns that over 60 percent of growth/production (edibles) was smuggled out of the country to Afghanistan, creating a serious demand and supply gap therefore controlling the prices of almost everything was not possible.
The majority of traders in Lahore when contacted expressed their view that strong actions taken by Chief of Pakistan Army COAS Gen. Asim Munir against smuggling and illegal stuffing of market with Afghan transit trade items are showing results. They are of the view that further tightening of smuggled products coming through the Afghan transit trade would definitely benefit local producers.
Sartaj Memon, who has dealt in the share market of Karachi since 1991, when asked to comment on the economic recovery of the country, stated the first time in history, the Pakistan Stock Exchange 100 index has reached its highest point and that it was made possible due to right policies of the government such as controlling smuggling and capping unnatural growth of real estate.
In simple words, Afghanistan is costing Pakistan more than Pakistan could manage in different spheres, from the terrorism sphere to the economic terrorism sphere.
