Three months after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban regime, millions of Afghan people are arguably at the brink of history’s most brutal crises of hunger and chronic poverty. Some international organizations even see Afghanistan replacing Yemen in terms of the worst humanitarian crises.

In the meanwhile, the Taliban government cannot use the $9.5 billion Afghan assets and loans. The international community is not yet ready so far to accept the regime change in Kabul. On the other hand, a recent video shows Afghan women criticising the Taliban government and claiming that “the Taliban obsesses over women’s daily activities while failing to manage basic needs”.

Several countries and international organizations including the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), World Food Programme (WFP), International Rescue Committee (IRC), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and others are trying to persuade the world to help Afghan people.

Nearly 23 million people in Afghanistan are acutely food insecure, according to the UN World Food Program (WFP). Of these, almost nine million face emergency levels of food insecurity. Only 5 percent of the population has “enough” to eat. WFP attributes this to not just conflict in Afghanistan but also environmental disasters, such as drought and flooding and economic hardship. This year’s drought, for instance, left Afghanistan substantially – 2.5 million tonnes – short on wheat production. More than half of Afghanistan’s population lives below the poverty line, subsisting on less than $1 per day, according to the World Bank.

Pakistan has granted permission to India on humanitarian grounds to use its land route to ship 50,000 MT of wheat and lifesaving drugs to Afghanistan despite the hostility between India and Pakistan. At first, this offer came with the condition that India would use United Nations vehicles to transport this aid since India is not allowed to use Pakistanisoil for any activity.

However, seeing India’s reluctance to accept this offer, Pakistan has proposed that Afghan trucks can be used for transportation of this aid from Wagha to Torkham. India has still to respond to this offer.

The offer has been appreciated at national and international levels. Brig Syed Ghazanfar Ali (retired), a former head of Military Intelligence (MI) and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Punjab, has praised the government’s policy of not letting Indian trucks enter Pakistan and reach Kabul.

“India took advantage of the humanitarian crisis after 9/11. It used that opportunity against Pakistan”, he tells The News on Sunday (TNS). To some extent, this policy will disallow India a repeat of the previous activities, he adds.

Though our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are well-equipped to handle any untoward situation, he says, it will be an additional burden for them if our government allows India to send its trucks with drivers of whom some are secret agents.

The negotiations between India and Pakistan on transporting the aid material can perhaps be an opportunity also for reopening bilateral trade, says Brig Ali. In his view, the international community is praising our intentions and efforts to keep region peaceful. He says Pakistan can take the international community on board to resume negotiations with India on more issues including Kashmir.

Brig Ali says that engaging the international community is a good option. According to the US State Department, Pakistan hosted a meeting in Islamabad a few days ago with representatives from China, Russia and the United States to discuss the situation in Afghanistan — the officials also met with Taliban representatives on the sideline.

This can be the best opportunity for our foreign office to improve the country’s image at international level but we must refrain from going into bilateral relations with India until India restores the special constitutional status of Occupied Kashmir, says Brig Farooq Hameed (retired), a security analyst.

Pakistan is ready to facilitate the world, including India, in supplying aid to Afghanistan in this critical situation but we should limit cooperation to this point, he tells TNS.

Pakistan has for years denied India commercial or other transport links to Afghanistan. In recent times, only once has Pakistan permitted India to use its space when Prime Minister Modi’s plane flew over Pakistan airspace, to return from Italy.

“A similar permission could have been requested by India to supply aid by air,” he adds.

Nonetheless, Brig Ali is convinced that both nations should consider this a positive window to reopen negotiations just as they have reviewed the situation along the Line of Control (LoC) and agreed to stop firing along the disputed border.

The directors-general of military operations (DGMOs) of the Pakistani and Indian militaries also held discussions over a hotline in February this year.

The author is a staff member. He can be reached atwarraichshehryar@gmail.com