Pakistan opens land trade routes to Iran, despite US blockade

While attempting to reboot nuclear talks between Iran and the United States, Pakistan reportedly opens land-based trade routes to Iran, despite the American naval blockade.

By World Israel News Staff

Pakistan has opened six overland transit routes for goods bound for Iran, aiming to clear thousands of containers stranded at Pakistani ports as the US-Iran conflict disrupts shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan’s Commerce Ministry issued an order on Saturday allowing third-country goods to be moved through Pakistan and delivered to Iran by road. The routes link Karachi, Port Qasim and Gwadar with Iranian border crossings at Gabd and Taftan.

A Pakistani official told Arab News that about 3,000 Iran-bound containers had been stuck at Karachi and Port Qasim since the crisis began.

“Currently, around 3,000 Iranian containers have been lying at Karachi and Port Qasim since the crisis began, as shipping companies could not wait for the crisis to end to drop the cargo at Iranian ports,” the official said.

The move comes as maritime trade with Iran has been squeezed by regional fighting, Iranian restrictions in the strait of Hormuz and a US naval blockade targeting Iranian ports.

Reuters reported last week that only five ships passed through the strait in a 24-hour period, compared with about 140 daily before the conflict.

Federal Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan described the new corridor as “a significant step toward promoting regional trade and enhancing Pakistan’s role as a key trade corridor,” according to Al Jazeera.

The arrangement does not apply to Indian-origin goods, which remain barred from transiting Pakistan under a separate order issued after last year’s India-Pakistan conflict.

Officials are also considering moving some containers by small vessels from Karachi-area ports to Gwadar, near the Iranian border, rather than sending them by road across Pakistan.

“This move would help clear the backlog and reduce the cost,” a port official told Arab News.

Business figures cautioned that the measure should not be read as a broader expansion of Pakistan-Iran trade, which remains constrained by sanctions.

“This has nothing to do with bilateral trade between the two countries,” Tariq M. Rangoonwala, chair of the Pakistan National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce, told Arab News.