Adedokun Waliyu 
Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government has signed an agreement with Russia to import fuel and wheat at a discount as the country struggles to feed its population and seeks to boost regional trade a year after regaining power.
Afghanistan, Acting Afghan Commerce and Industry Minister Haji Nooruddin Azizi confirmed this to Reuters, stressing that the ministry was working to diversify its trading partners and that Russia had offered the Taliban administration a discount to average global commodity prices.
The country Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s spokesman, Abdul Salam Jawad Akhundzada, on Wednesday added that items like gasoline, diesel, gas and wheat will be purchased in Russian rubles and at a “special discount.”
He asserted that preparations were underway to start importing the products within days or weeks.
The move is said to be the first known major international economic deal struck by the Taliban since they returned to power more than a year ago and it could help to ease the Islamist movement’s isolation that has effectively cut it off from the global banking system.
According to the report, Azizi said the deal would involve Russia supplying around one million tonnes of gasoline, one million tonnes of diesel, 500,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and two million tonnes of wheat annually.
Russia’s energy and agriculture ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the agreement. The office of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who is in charge of oil and gas, also did not immediately respond.
Azizi who said the agreement would run for an unspecified trial period, after which both sides were expected to sign a longer term deal if they were content with the arrangement, declined to give details on pricing or payment methods, but said Russia had agreed to a discount to global markets on goods that would be delivered to Afghanistan by road and rail.
The deal was finalised after an Afghan technical team spent several weeks in discussions in Moscow, having stayed on after Azizi visited there last month.
Afghanistan consumes 1.3 million tons of fuel annually, imported mostly from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran, according to the ministry.
