Cabinet turns down ECC decision, says 'no trade with India' until autonomy returned to IOK

ISLAMABAD, APR 1: The federal cabinet on Thursday deferred the Economic Coordination Committee's (ECC) decision to allow the import of sugar, cotton and cotton yarn from India through land and sea routes.

The decision has been deferred until India reinstates Article 370 of its Constitution, which guaranteed a semi-autonomous status for Indian-occupied Kashmir. Pakistan had suspended all bilateral trade with Indian following New Delhi's decision to revoke Article 370 in August 2019.

"Today Cabinet stated clearly NO trade with India," Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari tweeted.

She said Prime Minister Imran Khan had made it clear that "there can be no normalisation of relations with India until they reverse their illegal actions" regarding occupied Kashmir taken on Aug 5, 2019.

Speaking to Geo News, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also said the cabinet had ruled that "normalising relations with India will not be possible" until it overturned the measures it took regarding occupied Kashmir's special status.

"A perception was emerging that relations with India have moved towards normalisation and trade has been opened," Qureshi said. "There was an exchange of thoughts on this and there was a unanimous opinion on this and it was the prime minister's [opinion] as well that as long as India does not review the unilateral steps it took on August 5, 2019, normalising relations with India will not be possible."

Earlier today, Mazari had stated that all ECC decisions "have to be approved by the federal cabinet".

"Only then they can be seen as 'approved by government'," she said, adding that the "media should be aware of this at least".

Finance Minister Hammad Azhar had made the decision to restore trade ties with India public on Wednesday, stating that the price of sugar in India is "significantly cheaper than Pakistan; therefore, we have decided to open its trade and allow commercial import of 500,000 tonnes of white sugar”.

The minister had said the decision was taken to improve supplies and discourage price hike in Pakistan as sugar in India was 15pc to 20pc cheaper.

An official statement had said the ECC allowed the commercial import of white sugar from India till June 30, 2021, through land and sea routes, on the basis of the quota issued by the Ministry of Commerce. The decision would be time and cost effective and would also stabilise the prices of sugar in the domestic markets, it had added.

Prime Minister Imran, who is also Minister-in-Charge of Commerce and Textile, had approved the summaries for import of cotton, cotton yarn and sugar to be placed before the ECC for approval. It meant that the prime minister was already in support of lifting the ban on these products' imports from India.

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