India’s move to shoot1.6 tonnes of life- saving drugs to Afghanistan has drawn praise from the Taliban at a time when Pakistan continues to produce hurdles in the payload of wheat offered by the Indian side via the Wagah land border crossing A special duty flight that brought 104 people, utmost of them Afghan Sikhs and Hindus, from Kabul to New Delhi on Friday carried back drugs meant for the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health in Kabul. The main children’s sanitarium in the Afghan capital is scuffling with a growing number of children affected by malnutrition.
“ These drugs will be handed over to the representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Kabul and will be administered at the Indira Gandhi Children’s Sanitarium, Kabul,” the external affairs ministry said Taliban deputy prophet Ahmadullah Wasiq twittered in Pashto that important medical outfit would also be brought in from India and made available to hospitals. In another tweet, he added “ India is a leading country in the region. Afghanistan-India relations are veritably vital. Abdul Kahar Balkhi, the prophet of the Taliban’s foreign ministry, said on Twitter “ We appreciate the appearanceof.Indian- supported drug to Indira Gandhi Children’s Sanitarium in Kabul.” He added the duty flight operated by Kam Air had brought back 85 Afghan citizens who were stuck in India and this “ trip process will continue”.
Afghan minister Farid Mamundzay said the “ life- saving drugs will help numerous families in this delicate time The consignment of drugs was the first tranche of philanthropic aid handed by India since the preemption of Kabul by the Taliban. The Indian side doesn’t honor the Taliban governance but has constantly said it’ll give aid to the Afghan people against the background of a brewing philanthropic extremity.
India’s offer to give tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan via Pakistani land routes, still, has been incapacitated by conditions attached to the move by Islamabad, people familiar with the matter said on condition of obscurity. On December 3, Pakistan said it would allow wheat and drugs to be packed via the Wagah land border crossing in Afghan exchanges.
Still, Pakistan also told the Indian side that the entire consignment of wheat should be transported within December, the people said. The wheat is to be carried from Wagah by exchanges that bring Afghan products to the Indian side. The people said only 30 to 40 Afghan exchanges made the diurnal trip to Wagah and it was doubtful that tonnes of wheat could be transferred via the land route by the end of this month Pakistan has allowed the wheat to be transported from Wagah to Torkham, a crucial border crossing between Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa fiefdom and Afghanistan’s Nangarhar fiefdom, where the aid would be handed over to the World Food Programme (WFP), the food backing branch of the UN, since the Indian side does n’t honor the Taliban governance.
Indeed the Taliban leadership, facing severe problems due to food dearths, has pushed the Pakistan government for the speedy payload of the wheat. The Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, raised the detention in the shipping of the wheat with an conciliator as lately as December 7 India made the offer for dispatching the wheat and drugs via Pakistani soil on October 7, and entered a response from the Pakistan government only on November 24.
