Border Closures Force Afghanistan Onto Lengthier Central Asian Trade Routes

Afghanistan has lost access to its primary sea transit routes through the ports of Karachi in Pakistan, Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates, and Bandar Abbas in Iran. Closures tied to border clashes and regional conflicts have redirected all trade, transit, and humanitarian shipments onto longer and costlier paths through Central Asia.

The Torkham and Spin Boldak crossings were closed on the twentieth of Mizan in the fourteen hundred four solar year after clashes involving Taliban forces and Pakistan. The crossings have remained shut for two hundred fifty days.

Traders now import essential goods mainly via Central Asian routes. These alternatives add fifteen to twenty days to transit times and up to two thousand dollars per container compared with the former sea options.

The Jebel Ali closure followed conflicts involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, leaving Afghan containers stranded. A recent agreement between Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian may reopen Iran-UAE transit.

The United Nations World Food Programme moved four hundred tons of aid biscuits to Afghanistan along a fifteen thousand kilometer route through nine countries because of the port and border closures. A China-Afghanistan railway via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to Hairatan remains underused due to uncertainty and the lack of container sealing, according to analyst Sir Qureshi of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment.