Truck drivers eat on the bottom by their stalled automobiles close to Torkham, Pakistan, on Oct. 13, 2025. Greater than three months later, the Torkham border stays closed with no sign of ending.
ABDUL MAJEED/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
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ABDUL MAJEED/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — For greater than three months, Afghan truck driver Anwar Zadran has been parked in Pakistan with a truck filled with cement he was supposed to move from a manufacturing facility in Nowshera district to Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. The duty turned unimaginable beginning in mid-October, when Pakistan and Afghanistan shut their borders in response to combating between the 2 international locations, stranding Zadran mid-route close to the Torkham border crossing.
He now spends his daylight huddled at roadside tea stalls with different stranded drivers, ready for an indication that restrictions at Torkham will loosen. On daily basis, Zadran places on the identical skinny garments he arrived in months in the past, when the climate was heat — retreating to his truck to sleep within the evenings when the air turns icy chilly. “The people are destroyed and the goods are damaged as well,” he says. “I wish the border would open soon so that we can get some relief.”
Zadran, who’s from Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, and his fellow drivers are used to intermittent closures alongside this border, which snakes greater than 1,600 miles by way of the rugged mountains and deserts that separate Pakistan and Afghanistan. Usually tons of of vans go by way of day by day. Previously, border disruptions often have been resolved inside days or even weeks, however this one has stretched past 100 days — the longest closure in latest a long time, with no clear finish in sight. It has introduced commerce between Pakistan and Afghanistan to a halt and paralyzed a key transit route that extends throughout Central Asia.
The closure of 5 energetic commerce borders is an element of a bigger dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan over learn how to deal with a lethal surge in militancy, principally alongside the border belt, but in addition together with a suicide assault final week claimed by ISIS at a mosque in Islamabad that killed dozens. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan of harboring militant teams that perform assaults on Pakistani soil, a cost Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities denies. Among the many teams is the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, often called the Pakistan Taliban or TTP, which goals to convey down Pakistan’s authorities and has turn into extra energetic in Pakistan because the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021.
The tipping level got here when Afghan and Pakistani forces fired at one another throughout the border in October. The international locations agreed to a ceasefire and took half in a number of rounds of peace talks in Istanbul, Doha and Riyadh. All did not convey a couple of decision. After the ceasefire, the Taliban authorities accused Islamabad of finishing up airstrikes inside Afghan territory that killed civilians, together with 9 kids. Pakistan denied attacking civilians.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif mentioned late final month that Pakistan had no selection however to shut its border as a result of the Taliban could not decide to stopping militant teams that function from Afghanistan. “We didn’t want to, but they forced us,” he mentioned. The Taliban authorities accused Pakistan of shutting its borders as a technique to assert financial and political strain, and desires Pakistan to present ensures that it will not.
On the lookout for workarounds
In Peshawar, round 40 miles from the Torkham border, enterprise leaders have been compelled to search for doable workarounds. On a whiteboard in his workplace, dealer Shahid Hussain has mapped out alternate routes for his exports by way of China. His shipments of meals merchandise to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan usually go by way of Afghanistan. However not anymore.
The China route is believable, Hussain says, however insurance policies for Pakistan to make use of China for transit commerce are unclear. An alternative choice is thru Iran. The nation is beneath worldwide sanctions, although, and banking channels with Pakistan are restricted. Political instability there additionally makes this path unsure.
Hussain, who usually additionally exports cement to Afghanistan, estimates losses of round $400,000 simply from broken and expired shares because the border closures began. He stopped paying salaries for his staff beginning this month and compares his enterprise of greater than 20 years to a tree disadvantaged of water. “There’s no work,” he says. “And what other activity should we do?”
In January, enterprise leaders from each international locations fashioned a joint committee to evaluate the scenario. The group has to date held two conferences on-line and hopes to fulfill within the coming months on the Torkham border if they’ll get authorities approval. Each side agree that the scenario is dire and are attempting to persuade their respective international locations’ leaders of the identical.
However the enterprise neighborhood has been left with out a lot leverage, says Jawad Hussain Kazmi, president of the Khyber Chamber of Commerce and Trade, a regional commerce physique. He heads the joint committee fashioned final month for the Pakistan aspect. “Our government has a one-point agenda,” he says, “and that’s that security problems should be resolved.”
Naqibullah Safi, secretary common of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Trade in Kabul, says the border closures even have halted the entry of products sure for Afghanistan from different Asian international locations, together with China, Malaysia and Vietnam. This consists of delivery containers filled with meals, material and medical provides, a few of which stay caught on the port in Karachi.
“This is the worst situation for the private sector,” he says.
Safi says there have been minor value will increase in Afghanistan for items together with rice, medication and cooking oil.
Losses within the tons of of thousands and thousands
Abdul Salam Jawad, the spokesperson for Afghanistan’s commerce ministry, instructed NPR in a press release despatched by way of WhatsApp that his nation’s exports to Pakistan (together with fruits, greens and coal) have been round $300 million much less final 12 months — when border closures started — than within the earlier 12 months. Pakistan’s commerce ministry didn’t reply to a request for commerce figures. Final month, Pakistan mentioned it could permit for caught items sure for Afghanistan to be re-exported to their international locations of origin.
Because the extended border closures drag on, Afghanistan has sought to diversify its commerce with different international locations within the area, together with India and Iran. As a part of this effort, the Taliban authorities has requested India to assist facilitate the motion of Afghan items by way of a port wherein India has been concerned within the Iranian metropolis of Chabahar.
The Taliban individually ordered an entire ban on Pakistani prescription drugs beginning this month, citing high quality issues — a blockade that might proceed even when borders reopen.
Resulting from restricted manufacturing in Afghanistan, the nation depends on Pakistan for greater than 60% of its medication, and Pakistan’s yearly pharmaceutical exports to Afghanistan are value round $200 million, in response to Tauqeer Ul Haq, former chairperson of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Producers Affiliation. He says shares meant for Afghanistan cannot simply be redirected, particularly temperature-controlled medication that received caught in transit. “We fear that it will be wasted,” he says. “It will not be usable.”
At a marketplace for Pakistani medication in Peshawar, store house owners are already battling the lack of enterprise from Afghanistan, which makes up a good portion of their gross sales. Along with wholesale consumers from Afghanistan, this market serves Afghan sufferers who come throughout the border to purchase medicines in bulk which are arduous to get of their nation.
Aslam Pervez, a store proprietor and common secretary for Peshawar of the Pakistan Chemists’ and Druggists’ Affiliation, says he worries for sufferers who want lifesaving medicines comparable to insulin.
“From both sides, it’s the people who are going to be the losers,” Pervez says. “We can’t change our neighbor.”
Wasim Sajjad contributed to this report from Peshawar and the Torkham border.
