Daily Times

KHYBER AGENCY: Pakistani border authorities at the Pak-Afghan Torkham Border Crossing denied the entry to Afghan trucks temporarily for not having valid travel documents as the deadline of preparing and possessing of valid documents expired on September 30. However, the trucks were allowed to cross border after two separate rounds of negotiations held between Pak-Afghan border officials and transporters at the Torkham border. Talking to Daily Times, President All Khyber Transporters Shakir Afridi said that they went to the Afghan side of the border and met a group of Afghan transporters headed by Ghalib and Hashim. “We discussed the issue raised by the Pakistani authorities and transporters from both Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed that they were not ready to accept the visa condition for truck drivers and other crew members,” he maintained. Shakir Afridi said that continuous disallowance of Afghan trucks in to Pakistan without proper documents would also result in denial of entry for Pakistani truckers into Afghanistan. Meanwhile, officials of both the countries also held talks to resolve the issue. A well-informed source in Pakistan border authorities at Torkham told this scribe that Afghanistan did not agree to impose visa condition on Afghan transporters. He said that Pakistani border officials however exempted truck drivers from visa condition but the other crew members would be fined Rs 2,000 per person in case of having no travel documents. Later, the hundreds of loaded and empty trucks stranded at both sides of the border were allowed to travel to their destinations. It may be mentioned that Pakistani border authorities had placed visa condition for all truck drivers and cleaners while entering Pakistan via Torkham border.