Iran Resumes Fuel Exports to Help Afghans

Date: 24 August 2021 - 22:59

News ID: ۹۳۵۸۱

TEHRAN -- Iran resumed fuel exports to Afghanistan a few days ago following a request from the new local governors, an Iranian official has said.
The price of gasoline in Afghanistan reached $900 per tonne as many Afghans were driven out of cities after the Taliban’s takeover of the country. To counter the price spike, the new authorities asked Iran to keep the borders open for traders.
“The Taliban sent messages to Iran saying: ‘You can continue the exports of petroleum products’,” Hamid Husseini, a board member and spokesman of Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, was quoted as saying.
The Taliban sent messages to Iranian traders and to an Iranian chamber of commerce, he said.
As a result, the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) lifted a ban on fuel exports to Afghanistan, which had been in place since August 6 because of Iran’s concerns about the safety of trading in the country.
Husseini also cited the Taliban’s decision to cut tariffs on imports of fuel from Iran and other neighboring countries and shared with Reuters an official document issued by Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the name by which the Taliban refers to itself.
The document specified a 70-percent discount on tariffs on imports of gasoline, diesel and LPG from the neighboring countries to Afghanistan.
The main Iranian exports to Afghanistan are gasoline and gasoil. Iranian fuel flows have been vital to Afghanistan in the last few years, according to traders and an Afghan government report.
Iran is Afghanistan’s largest trading partner, with around $2 billion in bilateral trade each year, nearly a third of Afghanistan’s total trade volume. They share a 570-mile border that includes several lucrative trade routes.

Husseini said Iran can easily double its trade with Afghanistan, noting that the government of fugitive president Ashraf Ghani was always trying to limit cooperation with Iran since Iran was under US sanctions.
The Islamic Republic already hosts around three million Afghans, including around one million refugees and two million undocumented migrants, according to the United Nations. The recent upheaval has forced thousands of Afghans to flee their homes and cross the border into Iran.
Over the past two weeks, Afghanistan’s currency, the Afghani, has plunged to its weakest value on record, but it has strangely gained on the Iranian market amid a spree of buying by speculators who believe it would rebound soon.
While Iran is hedging its bets on the Taliban amid skeptical voices about the group’s past record, the constant principle for Tehran has been the development of its neighbor, irrespective of who rules the country.
Even under U.S. allies at the helm in Afghanistan, Iran’s development projects did not stop in the war-torn country. Tehran was one of the largest donors at a 2002 Tokyo conference, pledging more than India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, and Pakistan combined.
The Islamic Republic has spent millions of dollars on development and reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. It has built hundreds of kilometers of highways and railroads.
While Iran’s major investments in Afghanistan reflect strong historic and cultural ties between the two nations, they also show the Islamic Republic’s push to improve the security of its borders and cut illegal immigration from Afghanistan which affects Iran’s eastern provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Khorasan, and Kerman.
Last December, the two countries marked the opening of their first shared railway network, linking the Iranian city of Khaf with the Afghan town of Rozanak about 150 kilometres away.
The 225 kilometer network is scheduled to be expanded to reach Herat, Afghanistan’s third largest city, and help transport six million tonnes of goods and a million passengers annually. The Khaf-Herat network would later be connected to Central Asian and Chinese rail networks, officials said then.
Iran also provides easy access to the sea to Afghanistan through Chabahar. The Iranian port is part of a new transportation corridor designed to boost landlocked Afghanistan’s economy through access to overseas markets.
However, until Afghanistan arrives at new agreements with neighbors, the future of its trade under the Taliban will hang in the balance.
The militant group is also now in charge of negotiating some outstanding issues with neighbors, including water sharing with Iran. Tehran has strongly objected to Afghanistan’s construction of dams near the Iranian border in recent years.
The two countries have a water sharing agreement signed between them in the 1970s but declining rainfall, prolonged droughts, and mismanagement of water resources have severely affected agricultural production, food security and availability of drinking water in both countries.
In the past, Tehran has complained that Kabul does not allow sufficient water into Iran’s water-stressed southeastern region.