Tribal traders call for reopening of Afghan border
PARACHINAR: Pakistani traders have demanded the reopening of an Afghan border point closed last week after a deadly clash between the two sides.
Nazir Ahmed, a representative of traders in Parachinar, said that the closure has badly affected their businesses.
Last Sunday’s clash at the Laka Tega border post left five Pakistani paramilitary soldiers dead. Pakistan’s Foreign Office said earlier this week that the incident was addressed through “diplomatic and military channels.”
But Ahmed says labourers have sat idle for the past week watching their wares spoil as the Khar Lachi border point has remained shut since Sunday.
A security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief reporters, said the border will only be reopened after the area’s tribes from both sides meet.
DEMANDS
Separately, traders from North Waziristan have called off a week-long protest in Islamabad after the army agreed to compensate them for losses to their businesses owing to an anti-terror operation in the region, an official said.
The association had began the protest last week after an year of unsuccessful talks with the provincial government in North Waziristan, where they already carried out several protests to demand that the government and the Army help them in rebuilding businesses destroyed in an anti-terror campaign, Efe news reported.
“Last night at 11pm, we called off our protest after assurance from the Army,” Zaheen Ullah, president of the Traders Association of North Waziristan, said.
Association representatives had met Major General Asif Ghafoor, Director General of the Inter Services Press Office of the army on Friday night, who had assured them that their demands would be met.
Representatives from the army, local administration and tribal leaders will meet on Sunday to estimate the damages and establish a timeline for the compensations, he added.
The army had launched operation “Zarb-e-azb” in June 2014 against insurgent groups in the province, which included aerial bombings and land strikes. The crackdown displaced around a million people in two years according to official data.
The operation also killed 3,500 people, identified by the Army as “terrorists,” although that was yet to be independently verified.