1st World Leader to Spend a Night in Kabul

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1st World Leader to Spend a Night in Kabul

Manmohan Singh is first Indian prime minister to visit Afghanistan in 29

years

 

August 29, 2005, 10:45 PM (GMT+02:00)

 

Overruling warnings in New Delhi about his personal safety, Singh also

became the first world leader to stay in Kabul overnight since the Taliban's

overthrow in 2001.

 

The two-day visit underlined India's concern about the situation in

Afghanistan shortly before its general election and the curtailment of

Pakistan's influence. India seeks to strengthen the Karzai regime to make

sure the country does not return to fundamentalist control and become a

breeding ground for Islamist terror. The two leaders called for a regional

effort to fight terrorism and called on Pakistan to help defeat the militancy.

 

The Indian prime minister was accompanied by Rahul Gandhi, the son of

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, who is being groomed by his mother as a

future leader.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=653

Why Afghanistan is important to India

 

 

Ramananda Sengupta | August 30, 2005 00:08 IST

Last Updated: August 30, 2005 01:05 IST

 

Ever since Operation Enduring Freedom evicted the Pakistan-sponsored

Taliban regime from Kabul in December 2001, various powers started -- as

they always have been -- jockeying for political and economic leverage in

Afghanistan.

India -- one of the main supporters of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance,

which had managed to hold on to a tiny sliver of the country in the north

during the five years of Taliban rule -- and Pakistan are among them.

 

Afghanistan has a long and tumultuous history full of warring tribes and

ethnic factions, including a decade of brutal Soviet occupation from 1979 to

1989.

 

America's war on terror: complete coverage

 

Its main advantage, its geography -- has perhaps also been its main

drawback. Anyone who controlled Afghanistan controlled the land routes

between the Indian subcontinent, Iran, and resource rich Central Asia.

Almost every major power therefore wanted a slice of the pie.

 

Today, flanked by Iran on the west, Pakistan on the east and the Central

Asian republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north

(and a very small stretch of border with China in the northeast), the

country's geo-strategic importance has multiplied manifold.

 

What are India's interests in Afghanistan today?

 

Economically, it is a gateway to the oil and mineral rich Central Asian

republics. Also, the massive reconstruction plans for the country offer a lot

of opportunities for Indian companies.

 

 

Historically, apart from the five-years of Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001,

India has enjoyed good to excellent cultural and economic relations with

Afghanistan. Indian movies are reportedly a staple part of the Afghan

culture, while Afghan shawls and dry fruits, among other things, come into

India both legally and illegally.

 

Strategically, an actively pro-Delhi regime in Kabul (at the moment, fierce

warlords rule most other parts of the country) would rattle Islamabad,

which has traditionally seen Afghanistan as its own backyard.

 

Afghanistan keen to join SAARC

 

Why is Pakistan averse to giving India transit rights through to

Afghanistan?

 

Officially, the reason is Kashmir.

 

The issue of transit rights has even affected the talks for the gas pipeline

from Iran, with India's request for a highway parallel to the proposed gas

pipeline from Iran being repeatedly rejected by Islamabad.

 

Pakistan has been linking almost all economic issues, including granting

of MFN status to India, to the resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

 

Unofficially, it has to do with Pakistani fears that it would be swamped with

Indian imports, and its desire to retain hegemony over trade with

Afghanistan.A huge chunk of Afghanistan's trade is channeled through

Pakistani ports like Gwadar and Karachi.

 

'We have to induce Pakistan to fall in line'

 

What are the other differences with Pakistan?

 

Pakistan is wary of the number of Indian consulates in Afghanistan -- in

Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. It believes that these

missions are being used to foment unrest across the border in Pakistan's

Balochistan and other frontier provinces. Some officials have even accused

the Indian missions of printing and circulating fake Pakistani currency and

recruiting Afghans to carry out subservice acts in Pakistan.

 

India, however, asserts that "It's for the Afghans to decide which countries

get to set up consulates in their countries."

 

"We have strong bilateral relations with Afghanistan, and we want to help

them rebuild their country. India also sees Afghanistan as a route to

Central Asia. So it has nothing to do with Pakistan," a government

spokesman said.

 

India to help Afghanistan deal with terror

 

But a Pakistani official was quoted as saying that "Pakistan wants a

stable Afghanistan, because they are next to us, and any instability up

there will leak into Pakistan." As "for the Indians, we have told Afghanistan

that if they open those consulates in southern Afghanistan, the only

purpose is cross border terrorism into Pakistan."

 

What is the significance of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to

Kabul?

 

Since the fall of the Taliban, India has been one of the primary donors

towards Afghanistan's reconstruction. Apart from presenting aircraft to

kickstart its Ariana airlines, India has been active in building roads,

schools, hospitals, power and communication networks, besides training

its military, police, bureaucrats, diplomats and even businessmen.

 

Images: Camaraderie in Kabul

 

The prime minister's visit is aimed at consolidating these efforts, to send

out a message of solidarity and trust with the war-scarred nation, still

deeply divided along ethnic lines.

 

According to Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, "On the political side, really

our effort has been to contribute to the strengthening of this national

consensus, interethnic harmony in Afghanistan because we believe that for

the return of political stability it is important for the different ethnic

communities to work together.

 

"We have supported President Karzai in this direction the past and we

will continue to do so," he said.

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