New Delhi [India]: India is in touch with authorities in Pakistan to send more humanitarian assistance, including wheat and life-saving medicines to Afghanistan, the External Affairs Ministry said on Thursday. “We’ll continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. We’re committed to sending 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan,” MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said during his weekly media briefing here. “India is in touch with Pakistan authorities on modalities of shipment of 50,000 metric tons of wheat and as well other medical supplies to Afghanistan through the land route,” Bagchi said. The spokesperson, however, did not comment on why India did not use the Iranian port of Chabahar Port to move wheat through Iran. Bagchi reiterated that India has a special relationship with the Afghan people and UNSC Resolution 2593 would continue to guide India’s approach to Afghanistan. Bagchi also noted that India had dispatched about 1.6 metric tonnes of medical supplies as humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan on December 11 and it was handed over to the representatives of the World Health Organization in Kabul. Pakistan had in November this year decided to allow India to transport 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat and other humanitarian goods to Afghanistan through the Wagah border in a move Islamabad said was made on an “exceptional basis” keeping in view the humanitarian crises in Afghanistan. The Taliban took over control of Kabul on August 15 and following this the country has been battered by deepening economic, humanitarian and security crisis. A combination of a suspension of foreign aid, the freezing of Afghan government assets, and international sanctions on the Taliban, have plunged a country already suffering from high poverty levels into a full-blown economic crisis. The international community, from governments to non-governmental organizations, has been providing various assistance to the Afghan people.
