Loading Now

How Foreign Secretary’s meeting with Taliban highlights India’s nuanced Afghan policy – Firstpost

How Foreign Secretary’s meeting with Taliban highlights India’s nuanced Afghan policy – Firstpost



Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri’s meeting with Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Acting Foreign Minister of the Afghan Taliban government, in Dubai on January 8 was potentially a significant development for India’s approaches to Afghanistan. The meeting was not a chance encounter between Muttaqi and India’s top professional diplomat. Nor was it held on the sidelines of a multilateral event. It was obviously prepared for in advance; both Misri and Muttaqi were accompanied by a number of officials.

The meeting was doubtless the outcome of a deliberate decision taken at the highest level in India to publicly upgrade ties with the Afghan Taliban authorities. It does not mean that India has decided to accord diplomatic recognition to the Afghan Taliban government. Indeed, no country has—not even China which has replaced its ambassador in Kabul—given diplomatic recognition to the Afghan Taliban government. That has not inhibited China, Russia and a number of other countries from conducting relations with Kabul in a practical manner.

Clearly, India had decided to do the same when it had sent a ‘technical team’ to be based in Kabul in June 2022. The Joint Secretary in charge of the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran (PAI) Division in the Ministry of External Affairs, JP Singh, also travelled to Kabul to meet Afghan officials and ministers on a few occasions in the past two and a half years. It is certain that Indian agencies were also closely monitoring Afghan developments and maintaining contact with the Afghan Taliban. However, unlike some other countries India had remained inhibited in openly upgrading contacts till now. On their part the Afghan Taliban authorities were urging India to open up more to them. They had signalled not only now, but in the past too, that India should not consider the group as a Pakistani proxy.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statement on the Misri-Muttaqi meeting was appropriately nuanced. While acknowledging that the two sides had discussed “various issues pertaining to bilateral relations as well as regional developments” and noting that “The Afghan side underlined its sensitivities to India’s security concerns” its main emphasis was on India’s assistance programme to Afghanistan. India agreed to consider developmental projects in addition to continuing its humanitarian efforts. It was particularly pertinent in the context of India-Afghanistan connectivity that Misri and Muttaqi “also agreed to promote the use of Chabahar port for supporting trade and commercial activities, including for the purpose of humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan”. As Pakistan will not agree, in the foreseeable future, to opening the land route from India via its Punjab province to Afghanistan it is vital that the Chabahar port be upgraded. It is also noteworthy that the Afghan Taliban is in agreement with the ousted government of the Afghan Republic on the significance of the Chabahar port. It shows that it is no novice when it comes to Afghanistan’s national interests. Finally, it was good that Misri “underlined India’s historic friendship with the Afghan people and the strong people to people contacts between the two countries”.

The Afghan Taliban Foreign Ministry statement on the meeting stated: “Expressing gratitude for India’s humanitarian assistance, FM Muttaqi underlined a desire of strengthening political & economic relations with India as a key regional and economic player, in line with IEA’s balanced & economy-centric foreign policy. Assuring the Indian delegation that Afghanistan does not pose a threat to any nation, FM Muttaqi expressed hope for raising level of diplomatic relations, and easeing (sic) visa regime for Afghan businessmen, patients and students.”

This statement shows diplomatic sophistication. It stresses India’s importance in the region and as an “economic player”. It is therefore a signal to Pakistan that Kabul’s present rulers are not willing to sacrifice their country’s economic interests because   Pakistan wants Afghanistan to curtail its ties with India. At the same time, the statement seeks to reassure India as well as Pakistan that Afghanistan’s territory will not be available to be used by either country against each other. However, given the traditional paranoia in Rawalpindi and Islamabad on India and Afghanistan establishing meaningful ties such a balanced approach by Kabul will never satisfy the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment or its politicians.

Therein lies one significant aspect of the problem in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. This was illustrated during Army Chief General Asim Munir’s meeting with political leaders in Peshawar on January 13. The political leaders who were from all major Pakistani political parties recommended that Pakistan needed to engage the Afghan Taliban in a dialogue process on the ‘internal situation in Pakistan’.  These words obviously relate to the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban differences on the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP).

Media reports quoted Gen. Munir informing the politicians “They don’t listen to us”. While the immediate context was the TTP but for the Pakistani establishment it extends to anyone who is in power in Afghanistan’s attitude to India as well. It wants them to ‘listen to us’. That no Afghan government has been willing to do. And, no government in Kabul ever will. The Pakistani establishment has been especially bitter with the Afghan Taliban for they provided it all out support which enabled it to inflict a strategic defeat on the US in the forever war. That also sent the Afghan Republic packing. What the Pakistani generals forget is that the Afghan Taliban was one entity as long as it was dependent on them and became different after August 15, 2021 when it captured Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.

India will have to take great note of Muttaqi’s request for visas to Afghan nationals for business, medical treatment and education. Indeed, it is clearly contradictory that India’s top professional diplomat emphasised people-to-people ties with Afghanistan while India continues to pursue a completely restrictive visa policy for all Afghan nationals. This Indian visa policy since August 2021 has lost its substantial goodwill among the Afghan people. Naturally, security concerns have to be taken into account while giving visas to Afghans but it can now only be hoped that the restrictive policy which was counter-productive to Indian interests to begin with would be given up.

There is one basic question that has to be addressed at this stage in India-Afghan ties. Is there unanimity in the Afghan Taliban leadership towards opening up meaningfully with India? The Afghan Taliban leadership’s power is shared largely between the Kandahar-based groups and those from the south-east. The former are Durranis along with some Ghilzai tribes. The latter are led by the Zadrans. The word of the Afghan Taliban head, the reclusive Haibatullah, is final. He is well guarded in Kandahar. The Zadrans are strong in the south-east and their power in Kabul is substantial.

The Zadrans have had traditionally close ties with the Pakistani intelligence agencies and, it is believed, acted on their behalf in carrying out attacks on the Indian Mission in 2008 and later. But times have changed and it is now believed that the Zadrans want to balance ties between Pakistan and India. Mullah Yakub, the son of the Taliban founder-leader Mullah Omar who is now defence minister is also believed to be in favour of better ties with India but his enthusiasm for it is not clear. Muttaqi could not have met Misri without the clearance of Haibatullah but the Afghan Taliban Supremo’s real interest in the India relationship is a question mark. At the same time, he is unwilling to do Pakistan’s bidding on the TTP with whom the Afghan Taliban share theological connections.

Pakistan has begun indicating to Kabul and Kandahar that it has cards it can play. In late December the Director General of the ISI, Lt Gen Asim Malik visited Dushanbe. During the visit he met Tajikistan’s President, Emomali Rahmon. Rahmon has been his country’s President since 1994. He has seen all phases of the Afghan situation which has through the decades impacted his country’s security and economy.

Rahmon has always had reservations about the Taliban and had close ties with the Tajik leadership led by the Lion of Panjsher, Ahmed Shah Masood, during the 1990s. He gave the Tajik leadership refuge and a base. Now Masood’s son and the brave Amrullah Saleh are based in Tajikistan. From there they are trying to keep the flame of resistance to the Taliban alive. Some small militant actions are also taking place in northern Afghanistan. Malik’s visit was a signal to the Afghan Taliban that it can provide help to the Tajik’s and other members of the erstwhile Northern Alliance unless it begins to “listen” to Pakistan, especially on the TTP.  The other card that the Pakistanis can attempt to play is to provoke some of the traditionally anti-Afghan Taliban tribes in the Kandahar area—the Noorzais and the Achakzais for instance against it.

All this can trouble the Afghan Taliban but not really weaken its hold on the country. This is especially because there has been no real effective resistance against it in the cities.

The erstwhile officials of the Afghan Republic have been unhappy with the Misri-Muttaqi meeting. They should understand that India has to safeguard its interests in Afghanistan. That stated, India should also maintain its ties with all sections of Afghan opinion within Afghanistan and outside it too.

India has to now move deliberately to build on the Misri-Muttaqi meeting.

The writer is a former Indian diplomat who served as India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan and Myanmar, and as secretary, the Ministry of External Affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.



Source link

Post Comment