The town of Mashkhel is deserted and an eerie silence hangs in the air at Zero Point.

A town in Balochistan that sits at Pakistan’s border with Iran, Mashkhel was once a vital artery that facilitated trade between the two neighbouring countries. However, for several years now, there has been no trade between Iran and Pakistan through Mashkhel’s aforementioned Zero Point. This poses a real problem because Mashkhel, like many other bordering towns in Balochistan, has long been dependent on trade with Iran due to its geographical position.

For the residents and locals of Mashkhel, their food items, clothes, household appliances etc have always come from across the border in Iran. This is because Quetta, the provincial capital, is hundreds of kilometres away from Mashkhel, while the nearest town in Iran is just a stone’s throw away from Mashkhel. Since there has been no trade, residents of Mashkhel are in a state of anxiety because they have no way to obtain their edibles items, let alone other necessary household items.

But why is Pak-Iran trade at a standstill and who in Pakistan is bearing the brunt of this stifling of the cross-border trade?

FENCED IN

The lack of trade between Iran and Pakistan is a direct consequence of the policies both nations have adopted in recent times, resulting in a fencing of the border. Pakistan has been under pressure from the US not to engage in trade with Iran, with Pak-Iran bilateral trade plummeting to almost zero during the first 10 months of the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

The dearth of border trade has been justified by both Iran and Pakistan due to concerns over illegal cross-border movement and security risks in the region. Iran fears that the open access that was allowed at places such as Mashkhel undermined the country’s security policies. Long-standing political and administrative challenges on both sides have only further exacerbated the situation.

During the Iranian president’s visit to Pakistan in April, it was resolved to raise Pak-Iran trade to an ambitious $10 billion. In fact, trade had dropped to nearly zero in the first 10 months of the last fiscal year. The serious compulsions behind this lack of trade notwithstanding, the repercussions are felt most deeply in the small Pakistani towns that rely almost entirely on border trade…

Long before the fencing of the border, Sunni Baloch militants began to make inroads in the majority Shia state of Iran in the post-2000 period. As a result, the Sunni Baloch militancy was birthed in Iran and, ultimately, the militant group Jundullah was founded in 2003.

Jundullah’s founder, Abdul Malik Reki, was an Iranian Baloch. He was captured by Iran when a plane he was flying in from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan was intercepted over the Persian Gulf and forced to land. Following his capture, the Iranian state hanged him in 2010.

Despite his death, militancy in the border region has not died down, which is why the situation there is always tense. Over the last few years, terrorism in the region has been increasing, as Jaish-al Adl has replaced Jundullah and is actively carrying out terrorist activities. That is why Pakistan, under increasing pressure from Iran to not let militants slip across into Iran, started fencing the border too.

Muhammad Arif, an assistant professor at the department of international relations at the University of Balochistan, has some prescient insight to offer regarding the overall developments in the bordering region, vis-à-vis Pakistan-Iran relations. He explains why trade has come to a halt, how Pakistan’s policymakers are planning to address the situation, and the restrictions being faced by the Baloch on both sides of the border.

“As of right now, in Pakistan,” Arif says, “the situation is different than what is happening in Iran.” He is referring to the major new offensive and “comprehensive military operation” launched by the Pakistan army against Baloch separatists in Balochistan, adding, “This is why the border has been closed with Iran.”

Syed Fazl-e-Haider, a development analyst and author of The Economic Development of Balochistan, argues, “The restrictions on cross-border trade have been put in place due to cross-border terrorism. Each country blames the other for hosting and harbouring militant groups responsible for orchestrating attacks against each other. Both countries carried out tit-for-tat airstrikes against each other in January to hit the bases of militant outfits in each other’s territory. The border tensions directly impact the informal trade between Pakistan and Iran.”

Given the fact that Iran has been under US sanctions since 2013, Iranian authorities have tried to boost trade with Pakistan. The late Iranian president, Sayyid Ebrahim Raisi, during his visit to Pakistan in April, expressed a willingness to increase bilateral trade to $10 billion, in an attempt to get trade relations between the two nations back on track. But many intervening factors make this a proposition riddled with roadblocks.

As Haider argues, Iran’s nuclear ambitions have resulted in the country being ostracised by the West. Pakistan, given its precarious economic standing, cannot afford to invoke the ire of the US. For instance, Pakistan cannot import Iranian gas through the long-touted Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline since Pakistan did not build its section of the pipeline due to the fear of US sanctions. This only soured relations between Iran and Pakistan.

“While Tehran has constructed the pipeline on its territory at the cost of two billion dollars,” Haider says, “Islamabad could not begin the construction in Pakistan due to the looming threat of the US [sanctions].”

Alex Vatanka, author of the book Iran-Pakistan: Security, Diplomacy and American Influence, is of the opinion, “The hard reality is that, after years of promising security cooperation, Iran and Pakistan are still divided on the issue of combating militants that operate in the Iran-Pakistan cross-border regions.”

The lack of trade between Iran and Pakistan is a direct consequence of the policies both nations have adopted in recent times, resulting in a fencing of the border. Pakistan has been under pressure from the US not to engage in trade with Iran, with Pak-Iran bilateral trade plummeting to almost zero during the first 10 months of the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

Most experts are of the opinion that this is the main reason behind the dwindling trade between the two countries. Until Pakistan and Iran can see eye-to-eye on this issue and are able to come together for bilateral talks in order formulate a collective strategy to deal with militancy in the region, the trade question will likely remain unresolved.

Haider argues that shutting off trade with Iran only serves to harm the people living in Balochistan’s bordering districts with Iran, most of whom already lack job opportunities due to the lack of industries and developmental infrastructure in these areas.

“The people largely depend on informal trade with Iran for earning their livelihood,” he asserts. “Local businesses depend on Iranian goods reaching Pakistan through cross-border trade. If the government wants to continue restrictions on border trade with Iran, then it must set up industrial units and promote development activities for the creation of employment opportunities for local people.”

DUST AND DESPAIR

I recently toured the border towns in Rakhshan and Makran divisions, where five Pakistani districts share a 909km border with Iran. Besides these five bordering areas, all of Balochistan is, in one way or another, dependent on trade with Iran. But over the years now, trade with Iran has almost come to a standstill here, despite the fact that there is no economic activity, industries, jobs and other sources of livelihood for the Baloch in this region.

Situated in the far west of Balochistan, Mashkhel is a small dust-strewn town that was hit by a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2013. To this day, the town has a dilapidated look, made all the worse by the fact that there are no roads leading here.

In order to reach Mashkhel from Quetta city, one must first travel some 340km to Dalbandin, the heart of Chaghi district. The journey from there onwards to Mashkhel takes around three hours on a mostly unpaved road. The cars that transport passengers along this dusty terrain are usually double-seater vehicles that seem like relics from a forgotten past. 

At the time of writing, there is a shutter-down strike in the various border towns in the Rakhshan and Makran divisions of Balochistan. Strikers are protesting against the restrictions on the border trade and the closure of trade points along the Pakistan-Iran border. This is not the first time that traders in the area have recorded their protests. In fact, this has become a routine phenomenon, with Mashkhel witnessing several protests for quite some time now.

In the recent past, local traders protested for 32 days straight in the main Bazaar Chowk of Mashkhel by setting up a strike camp. When the authorities did not pay heed, the traders started a long march from Mashkhel to Quetta on foot. This protest too, unfortunately, fell on deaf ears.

Dressed in white shalwar qameez and sporting a beard, Jiand Reki is a social activist in Mashkhel. He has been at the forefront of the protests in Mashkhel, demanding that trade with Iran be opened again as the community here is entirely dependent on it. He also led the long march from Mashkhel to Quetta, along with his 11-year-old son. They travelled on foot for eight days, along with 25 other people, via the London Road.

While growing up in Mashkhel, Reki witnessed the ups and downs of trade with Iran: “My forefathers traded with Fars [in Iran] before the partition of the Subcontinent,” he says. “When Pakistan came into being, my ancestors traded with Iran by transporting goods on camels.”

Gradually, the camels were replaced by bikes, and the bikes by vehicles, as trade links continued to grow stronger between the two countries. Once upon a time, the border used to be open and movement to-and-fro was fairly straightforward. Now in his 40s, Reki recounts, “In 2005 and 2006, I myself was involved in the trade with Iran, transporting fruits and rice from Pakistan to Iran, while bringing back food items and gas cylinders. But, following the fencing of the Pak-Iran border back in 2018-2019, trade has come to a halt now. There is no trade at all in Mashkhel now.”

Mazasar Point in Mashkhel once served as the main border crossing between Pakistan and Iran, with people often travelling from one side to the other by foot. But, like the trade, this route has been closed for the last several years.

Khalid Baloch, a resident of Mashkhel, has not been able to meet his eldest daughter for the past four years, because she lives on the other side of the Mazasar crossing. Previously, he used to regularly visit Iran to meet with his loved ones. “We are cut off completely from each other, on both sides of the border, socially and economically,” he says. “There is no end in sight, and our woes will only be worsened in the coming months and years.”

THE FINAL FRONTIER

Talaap is a tiny, green town situated at the southern part of the Taftan border, Pakistan’s only official legal border crossing into Iran, in the Chagai district. Talaap is almost 700km from Quetta, has just over 50 houses, and has a population of a few hundred.

It is here that the Iranian authorities have built a 32km-long wall on their side of the border, in an attempt to stop the intrusion of drug traffickers, militants targeting Iran, and illegal migration into Iran. It is interesting to note that the Chagai district shares a triangular border with both Iran and Afghanistan, which is also a popular route to use for drug traffickers and human smugglers due to its remoteness.

While Iran has unilaterally built up the wall, this has resulted in many Baloch families being cut off from each other — economically, socially and politically. This is because many Baloch live in Iran. The Iranian province of Sistan-Balochestan is dominated by the Baloch and is one of the largest provinces in Iran in terms of area.

The Baloch nationalists’ decried the building of this wall, and the former leader of the opposition in the Balochistan Assembly, advocate Kachkol Ali, raised a voice against the wall’s construction, saying that the Baloch on both sides of the border were not taken into confidence before this decision was made. This wall was, he rightly argued, made against the will of the Baloch people. He had also tabled a resolution in the provincial assembly to address this issue, but no one in the federal government paid heed to his legislative move.

Saadullah Baloch, a resident of Talaap, says that their woes have been further compounded since the wall was built: “We are completely cut-off from our brethren living on the other side of the border in Iran. The wall has ended long-enduring relationships. Even Zero Point in Taftan is closed for trade.”

The wall has also brought with it the looming threat of violence. Saadullah and other residents of Talaap complain about cross-border firing done by the Iranian security forces. According to one local, “Our livestock and vehicles have sometimes been attacked by the Iranian security forces. A suspected Iranian drone also fell down here Talaap.” This tracks because, in 2017, Pakistani authorities shot down an Iranian drone in Panjgur, another bordering district with Iran in Balochistan’s Makran division.

What makes the misery here all the more unfortunate is the fact that Talaap is situated just a stone’s throw away from the Saindak copper and gold project and the Reko Diq copper and gold project. These ventures have failed to provide jobs and other economic opportunities to the locals. “Had there been no agriculture and livestock in Talaap, we would have starved to death,” Saadullah laments.“ But the state is oblivious and our clamour remains unheard.“

LEFT HIGH AND DRY

It is a tiresome journey from the main town of Panjgur to the Chedgi border point in Balochistan’s Makran division, which is comprised of three districts: Panjgur, Kech and Gwadar. Situated near the Mashkhel River in Panjgur, the Chedgi border looks deserted, much like most other Pak-Iran bordering points in Balochistan. Thanks to the pitiable condition of the road, the distance between Panjgur and Chedgi seems far longer than the around 95km it actually is.

Similar to the locals in Mashkhel, the people in Panjgur have many tales to tell about the trade between Pakistan and Iran back in the day. The Panjgur-based trader Haji Khalil Dehani says, “I used to bring edible items from Iran without any hassle. Back then, I used to transport all these items in an Iranian-made Paykan car, which was famous for trade in the distant past. Prior to that, we used to bring oil and edible items on a Rusi motorbike. As restrictions continued to increase, people started to use pick-up trucks such as the Zambad.”

Until a few years ago, the government had taken a few initiatives to bolster cross-border trade. Some government officials reportedly even inaugurated a few border markets in order to boost trade with Iran. Even though the border markets were opened, they quickly fell into disrepair and have become dysfunctional now — case in point being the border market in Chedgi. “It is deserted,” says Dehani despondently. “The dozen shops are all closed.”

The economic woes due to the border closures have only exacerbated societal issues. The people of Chedgi do not have any basic facilities available to them. There are neither hospitals nor any functioning educational institutions here. Even though the parents here want to send their children to school, the majority of teachers are situated in the main towns of Panjgur and hardly go out to far-flung border areas to perform their duties, which is why the schools in Chedgi are not functional.

Occasionally, unlike Zero Point in Mashkhel, the Chedgi crossing does open so that limited amounts of goods from Iran can make their way into Panjgur. But this simply is not enough to sustain any sort of prolonged economic activity or any hope for prosperity.

Jameel Baloch, a local resident, adds, “We have always asked the local administration to open trade with Iran completely so that Panjgur’s comatose economy can be revived again. But who will listen to us?”

A REGION ADRIFT

But, as stated earlier, the cost that is being borne due to these trade closures is not just an economic one. Families have been disconnected, relations severed and identities have been lost across the province due to the policies that have been put in place at these border towns.

I am reminded of the hazy childhood recollections that I have of some of my cousins and my father’s eldest sister, who I met only once as a child growing up in Dalbandin in the district of Chagai. They had come to visit us in the late 1990s from Sistan-Balochestan in Iran. I still do not remember the names of my cousins.

My aunt passed away in the recent past and no one from my family in Pakistan, including my father, could go to Iran to pay their last respects for the departed soul. That is the dilemma of the frontiers — the borders that divide us only push us further into oblivion, forever.

The writer is a member of staff based in Quetta

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 15th, 2024