NSAs agree to hold regular consultations on Afghanistan

Story by  IANS | Posted by  [email protected] • 2 Years ago
PM Narendra Modi with security officials of seven nations.
PM Narendra Modi with security officials of seven nations.

 

New Delhi

The NSAs meeting in the Capital is said to have met the expectations of the event as there was extraordinary convergence on the Afghanistan situation. Top security officials of the eight countries agreed upon the need to continue this process and have regular consultations.

Highly placed sources said the NSAs discussed the most important and pressing issues in the region and arrived at a complete consensus, which enabled them to issue the joint Delhi Declaration.

There was an extraordinary degree of convergence on the assessments of the situation in Afghanistan and the principal challenges in Afghanistan and the region. These included the security situation, heightened risk of terrorism and the impending humanitarian crisis. The NSAs noted the need to provide humanitarian assistance and emphasized that the land and air routes should be made available and no one should impede the process.

The NSAs reiterated the need to continue regular consultations among regional countries in this format. They also stressed that no one should boycott the process due to bilateral agendas. They had a very substantive exchange during their call on the PM, who shared India’s perspective on Afghanistan.

During the day, NSA Ajit Doval had bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Russia, Kazakhstan and Iran. These were substantive meetings and reflected the personal chemistry of the NSA with his counterparts. There were detailed discussions on Afghanistan as well as on bilateral relations.

Some of the focus issues discussed with Russia were defence cooperation and future exchanges between the NSCs.

With Kazakhstan, besides Afghanistan, there were discussions on enhancing connectivity and trading routes between the two countries, and practical steps to be taken in this direction.

During the meeting with Iran, bilateral trade and current state of relations were discussed, besides Afghanistan. Iran having hosted the previous two meetings of this format, discussions on how to carry forward this process also took place.