Pak under intense US pressure to allow India land trade route to Afghanistan - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Under immense pressure from the United States, Pakistan is likely to allow India a trade route to Afghanistan through the country. Khurram Dastgir, Chairman National Assembly Standing Committee on Commerce, revealed that Washington has been pressuring Islamabad to allow India to use the land routes to Afghanistan , while it finalises the draft of the Pak-Afghan transit trade. " Pakistan is facing enormous pressure for the last few months to finalise the draft of the Pak-Afghan transit trade. We have already discussed it in length to not pay heed to foreign pressure," Dastgir said. Dastgir, however, said enormous pressure from America might force Pakistan to create a middle path to finalise the agreement, The Nation reports. Pakistan has been stonewalling the US proposal seeking accessibility to India up to Afghanistan via Pakistani land routes, because of the fragile security situation in Afghanistan . Earlier this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to begin talks for renewing their transit trade agreement. While addressing a joint press conference with Karzai and Zardari, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said that the trade agreement would greatly benefit the people of the region, and also highlighted India's role in this regard.Clinton said both Pakistan and Afghanistan would strive to sign an agreement that would ultimately allow India to use the Wagah-Khyber route for trade with Afghanistan. However, India 's trading relations with Afghanistan through Pakistan are yet to resume, Soon after the US , Pakistan , Afghanistan trilateral meeting in May 2009, Pakistani officials had made it clear that Islamabad would not allow the Afghanistan transit facility to import oil from India . They said Pakistan could not grant the transit facility, because Indo-Pak trade was suspended ever since the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.