Saba Liaquat
Almost like clockwork, a new proclamation brings back the same fantasy of a rail that will haul grains, fertiliser, and cotton from the lands of Central Asia, down to the shores of the Arabian sea.
The July 2025 framework agreement between Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan marked the start of feasibility study into the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (UAP) rail, spanning the 573 kilometres from Termez to Kharlachi, via Mazar-i-Sharif and Logar. Kazakhstan has since announced plans to fund a rail connection between Pakistan’s ports, and has offered its own 120 kilometres route from Turgundi to Herat.
And the truth is self-evident: the railway cannot be built where the border remains closed. As soon as hostilities broke out on 12 October 2025, Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan remained closed most of the time and was partially opened briefly between two closures. In the period of July 2025 to April 2026, Pakistani exports into the five Central Asian countries declined by 9 percent, amounting to just $147.99 million in FY2025/26; their imports decreased 88 percent during the same period.
The feasibility study for the UAP would become available only towards the end of 2026, and any operations are unlikely until the 2030s. A decade of such trade must be found somewhere.
The underlying fallacy of the connectivity debate in the region becomes evident here because it focuses only on the infrastructural development without taking into account the politics behind utilization of this infrastructure. South Asia is still considered among the most under-connected regions in the world with intra-regional trade amounting to just 5% of its overall trade compared to 50% of the trade share in East Asia and the Pacific region. The World Bank estimates that it may increase from about $23 to $67 billion if the obstacles are removed.
Land bridge also has two missing halves. On the one side is the frontier of Afghanistan, while on the other side is the border between India and Pakistan, which has become a closed border since April 2025 when Pakistan ceased its trade relations with India, even for third-country transshipment. The official trade between the two countries was only around $1.2 billion in 2024 compared to an estimate of the World Bank of $37 billion potential trade. Previously, the same border used to enable Afghan dry fruits to reach the markets of India through Pakistan.
In response to the developments, Pakistan has been hedging. Opening of the Gabd–Rimdan border crossing to Iran took place in April 2026; a shipment has arrived in Tashkent from Iran; the Khunjerab Pass provides an all-year passage to China. There are reports of Uzbekistan and Pakistan working on a protocol for increasing trans-China cargo traffic.
While diversification seems reasonable, it comes at a price since it requires more time and higher costs and the Iranian route passes through a zone of the Iran-US conflict, which is beyond the control of anybody in Islamabad or Tashkent. At the same time, Kabul has advised its merchants to shift their focus to Central Asia where Afghanistan’s trade with the five Central Asian republics amounts to nearly $1.7 billion annually. The fact remains that the shortest route from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean is a fleeting opportunity. But how will the bridge become a reality? It requires three things.
First, separate trade from security threats. Islamabad and Kabul have established a joint border management committee. This committee needs to hammer out a protocol for transit and security cooperation with clear thresholds, graduated response, and a permanent hotline to ensure that an episode leads to a suspension lasting hours, not months. Security concerns of Islamabad about militancy are quite genuine, but keeping a 2,611-kilometre border closed to trade hurts more than it helps.
Secondly, plan for the intermezzo. It will be decades before rail comes; trucks have already arrived. Dry ports, or multimodal intermodal facilities that can cope with the gauge difference between the 1,520 mm gauge used in Uzbekistan and the 1,676 mm gauge used in Pakistan, and digital customs clearance through the TIR system would ensure the reliability of existing corridors before laying a single piece of rail in Logar.
Third, abandon any hope for regional breakthroughs. There hasn’t been a SAARC summit since 2014, and it makes sense to do something rather than waiting for SAARC to get back into shape. Coalitions of the willing – such as Pakistan and Central Asia, or BIMSTEC – can proceed faster. However, at the same time, Delhi and Islamabad do not need to normalize their relations to understand that a bilateral deal on Afghan transit will help third countries that have no dog in their fight.
Rails are built by states which are able to understand one another. The measure of integration of South-Central Asia in 2027 will not be how rails have been laid in Afghanistan; it will be whether a truck is able to drive from Termez to Karachi. Until that moment, the land bridge will simply be a map beautifully drawn and an unfinished argument.
Saba Liaquat is a BS scholar of International Relations at the National University of Modern Languages, Rawalpindi. Her academic and professional interests include water security of middle east , international affairs, regional security, climate diplomacy, South Asian politics, human rights, and policy research.
