APTTA 2010 allows both countries to use each other`s airports, railways, roads and ports for transit trade along designated transit corridors. The Agreement does not apply to road vehicles from third countries, whether they come from India or a Central Asian country. [14] The APTTA agreement allows Afghan trucks to transport exports via Pakistan to the Wagah border crossing in India[6][7] but does not offer Afghanistan the right to import Indian goods through Pakistani territory[17], for fear that Indian goods will end up on the Pakistani black market in the same way as the 1965 ATTA. Instead, Afghan trucks unloaded at Wagah could return to Afghanistan loaded only with Pakistani and non-Indian goods,[18] in order to prevent the formation of a black market for Indian goods in Pakistan. ATTA has not granted Pakistan reciprocal duties to export goods to neighbouring countries via Afghan territory. Pakistani attempts to gain access to Central Asian markers were thwarted by political instability in Afghanistan that had persisted since the late 1970s. As Afghanistan became increasingly dangerous as a transit corridor, China, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan developed a separate treaty called the Quadrilateral Transit Traffic Agreement (QQA) in 1995 and signed the treaty in 2004. [9] Despite the signing of the AQQ, the full potential of the agreements was never exhausted, largely due to poor infrastructure links between the four countries. During Afghan President Ashraf Ghani`s visit to India in April 2015, he said, „We will not grant Pakistani trucks equal access to transit to Central Asia,” unless the Pakistani government has included India in the 2010 Afghan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement to allow the movement of Indian goods through Pakistani territory.[29] which is directly contrary to Article 5 of the Agreement. which explicitly excludes Indian exports from the agreement. [30] Pakistan rejected calls for India`s admission because the signed agreement explicitly denies Indian goods the right to transit through Pakistan. Afghanistan also refuses to grant Pakistan the right to import and export goods from Central Asia through Afghan territory.
The 2010 APTTA agreement allowed the export of Afghan goods to India via Pakistani territory, but did not allow the export of Indian goods to Afghanistan via Pakistani territory. [28] In July 2012, Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to extend APTTA to Tajikistan, which will be the first step towards establishing a North-South trade corridor. The proposed agreement will give Tajikistan the opportunity to use Pakistan`s ports and border for imports and exports, while Pakistan would be granted the right to transport goods through Tajik territory to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. [32] APTTA calls for various measures to combat the smuggling of duty-free goods in Pakistan and Afghanistan by requiring: cargo tracking devices, bank guarantees and special licenses for guaranteed carriers for transit trucks, vehicle tracking systems and container security deposits. [20] The agreement granted Pakistan access to any country bordering Afghanistan, with access to Iran via the Borders of Islam Qila and Zaranj, to Uzbekistan via the Hairatan border, to Tajikistan via the Ali Khanum and Sher Khan Bandar border crossing points, and to Turkmenistan via the Aqina and Torghundi border crossing points. Pakistani imports and exports are allowed to enter Afghanistan through the torkham, Ghulam Khan and Shaman border crossings. [19] The Pakistani government remained frustrated by Afghanistan`s refusal to allow Pakistani products access to Central Asian markets until Afghan exports were granted reciprocal access to Indian markets. Due to this frustration and the ongoing construction of road projects to China under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the Pakistani government signalled in February 2016 its intention to completely bypass Afghanistan in its quest for access to Central Asia by announcing its intention to revive the quadrilateral transit agreement so that Central Asian states can reach Pakistani ports via Kashgar instead of Afghanistan. [37] This will allow Central Asian republics to access Pakistan`s deep-water ports without having to rely on a politically unstable Afghanistan as a transit corridor.
However, the AQQ would not grant Pakistan access to Turkmenistan and Iran into Afghan territory, as APTTA does. The Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (also known as APTTA) is a bilateral trade agreement signed by Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2010 that calls for greater facilitation of the movement of goods between the two countries. .