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QUETTA, Pakistan: Thousands of trucks remain stranded on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border despite the resumption of limited overland trade between the two countries, southwest Pakistan business representatives told AFP on Monday.<\/p>\n
Mir Naveed Jan Kalmati, president of the chamber of commerce for Gwadar city on Pakistan\u2019s Arabian Sea coast, said the frontier with Iran was \u201conly partially open\u201d to trade, with a vast backlog of vehicles at the border.<\/p>\n
There were \u201cthree to four thousand trucks on the Iranian side and two to three thousand trucks on the Pakistani side,\u201d Kalmati said.<\/p>\n
Only certain vehicles were being allowed across the border to clear the backlog after a week-long closure, he said.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, said on X on Sunday there were no restrictions on the Iranian side, including for the export of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).<\/p>\n
He blamed the closures on \u201cchanges in the implementation of Pakistan\u2019s E-Form procedure for imports from Iran,\u201d which he said \u201chave created a situation in which traders are effectively and literally unable to dispatch cargo from Iran to Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s interior and foreign ministries did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.<\/p>\n
Kalmati said companies on both sides of the border were urging authorities to allow the complete resumption of trade.<\/p>\n
He said his members and drivers were \u201cfrustrated, they want to go back home, they want to continue their business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fida Ahmad Dashti, a businessman in Kech district in Pakistan\u2019s southwest Balochistan province, said he had been told that only vehicles with paperwork prepared before October 16 were being allowed to cross the border.<\/p>\n
Two other businessmen based in Balochistan confirmed their drivers had said only vehicles with documents prepared before October 16 were being allowed across the frontier.<\/p>\n
The Gwadar Chamber of Commerce said in a statement on Saturday the suspension of the import of LPG and the \u201cabrupt closure of the border\u201d had led to \u201cdisrupting the national LPG supply chain, and causing prices to skyrocket.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pakistan has attempted to mediate a peace deal in the Middle East war with Iran, and its army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, visited Tehran on Monday, the Pakistani military said, his second visit to the Islamic republic in less than a week.<\/p>\n
Senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan were to hold talks on regional security with Iranian officials in Tehran on Monday, Iranian and Saudi authorities said.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia and Turkiye signed the so-called Makkah Joint Defense Agreement in August, committing the three countries to mutual defense in the event of any of them being attacked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n