He said that an adviser on economic and trade affairs of the Russian embassy in Afghanistan, Georgiy Mishin, earlier told the RIA Novosti news agency that Uzbekistan had been delaying the delivery of Russian humanitarian aid into Afghanistan, specifically, in all, only eight wagons of Russian humanitarian aid had been delivered into Afghanistan via Uzbekistan since 17 March.

"The report made by the Russian trade official in Afghanistan is not true. Currently, the railway station Galaba (in Surkhandarya region in Uzbekistan) sends from 35 to 40 Russian wagons of flour and wheat into Afghanistan daily. As of today, 216 of the 269 Russian wagons have already been handed over to the Afghan side, which makes up over 80 per cent of all the wagons. The rest is on its way," the senior official from the Uzbek railway company said.

He also said that at present, 35 wagons of flour and 23 wagons of wheat, which arrived at the station on 25-26 March, were waiting for departure at the Galaba station, from where cargo is sent to Afghanistan. Of them, 32 wagons of flour and 23 wagons of wheat arrived from Kazakhstan, and three wagons of flour from Russia.

"It is true that a conventional ban was imposed on commercial wagons heading for the Khayraton station from 21 to 31 March. However, it was a temporary ban on all wagons entering the country, except for wagons carrying humanitarian cargo. The humanitarian cargo is freely moving towards a destination, and at present, their number is 573 wagons of flour and 514 wagons of wheat," Bakholdin said. He also noted that because of the suspension of the transit of commercial cargo through the country, the Uzbek economy was facing significant losses, at the same time, taking into account compensation paid for a delay of foreign wagons in its territory.

According to local experts, Afghanistan’s Khayraton is full of cargo because of poor management there. Wheat is first unloaded on to the ground because there is no elevator there and then manually packed into sacks, and only after that is loaded into wagons. [Therefore,] several thousands of wagons are being accumulated in Uzbekistan at once.