Pakistan is a loser by not attending Moscow Conference on Afghanistan

Story by  JK Tripathi | Posted by  Aasha Khosa • 1 Years ago
NSAs of the countries participating in the Moscow conference on Afghanistan (Courtesy: Indian embassy in Moscow (Twitter)
NSAs of the countries participating in the Moscow conference on Afghanistan (Courtesy: Indian embassy in Moscow (Twitter)

 

J K Tripathi/

In the recently concluded Regional Security Dialogue in Moscow, the heads of national security agencies of India, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and China deliberated on the Afghanistan situation. Pakistan was conspicuous by its absence from the meeting. While the official reason given for this by the Spokesperson of Pakistan’s Foreign Office was that currently, the country has no National Security Advisor after the post fell vacant with the resignation of Moeed W. Yusuf on April 3 and that there already are many forums on Afghanistan in which Pakistan participates, the real reason, as unofficially admitted by a high ranking official in the Pakistani Government, was Pakistan’s utter discomfiture in sharing dais with India.

It is to be noted that Pakistan did not attend any of the earlier editions of these dialogues. It did not attend the first two meetings hosted by Iran in 2017 and 2018 on the pretext that there were many other platforms on the Afghanistan issue. The third Dialogue, hosted by India in December 2021, was not attended for an obvious reason i.e. the sole objective of its foreign policy-hate India. China too didn’t attend the third edition on the pretext of “inadequate notice” though it attended the next two editions including the recent one. This year also Pakistan repeated the excuse made in 2019.

In the Moscow meeting and also in a one-to-one meeting with President Putin, the Indian NSA Ajit Doval reiterated the fact that India and Afghanistan share historical and cultural bonds and people-to-people relations. He also emphasized that “India will never abandon Afghanistan” and will keep its focus on ensuring food security to the latter by supplying food grains and providing medicines to overcome the health hazards. Keeping in line with this policy, India had recently supplied 40,000 tons of wheat,5,00,000 vaccines, 28 tons of disaster relief material, camps, and winter clothing to Afghanistan. To ensure the education and skill development of Afghan students, India has offered 2,260 fresh scholarships to them which includes 300 scholarships to girl students in a nation that discourages girl education.

Afghanistan has always been close to India except for a brief hiatus of the last five years of the last century. Even during the American occupation of Afghanistan and before the takeover of the country by the Taliban 2.0, India had invested more than US$ 3 billion in about 500 development projects. These included the construction of the Parliament building, Salma Dam, Delaram-Zaranj highway, power plant, schools, health care centers, transmission lines, community centers, Sulabh toilets, etc. All the social infrastructures were aimed not at the government of the day but at the development of 40 million Afghan people whose median life is 18 years. This is why India was able to convince the ruling Taliban of the former's humanitarian approach even though we have not recognized the new regime. The government of Afghanistan has accordingly assured India that no damage will be done to the Indian developmental projects.

It need not be emphasized that Afghanistan is very important to us. Strategically located in the heart of Asia, Afghanistan sits over the trade route to Europe via Central Asia. It provides us comparatively a shorter and easier land linkage with China, the Central Asian countries, and further west to Europe. The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan- India pipeline will be, when completed, a vital lifeline for us. The development of Chabahar Port in Iran and the railway link that is being established between it and Zaranj at the Afghan-Iran border will not only give us entry into Central Asia via Afghanistan but will also facilitate Afghan (and also Central Asian) trade through the land and sea route in the Arabian sea.

This is why India, during its presidency of the United Nations Security Council, got the carefully- worded resolution no. 2593 passed which “demanded that (i) Afghan territory should not be used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter or train terrorists, or to plan or to finance terrorist acts,(ii) called for strengthened efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, calls on all parties to allow full, safe, and unhindered access for the United Nations, its specialized agencies and implementing partners, and all humanitarian actors engaged in humanitarian relief activity, including for internally displaced persons, to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches all those in need, (iii)reaffirmed the importance of upholding human rights including those of women, children, and minorities, encouraged all parties to seek an inclusive, negotiated political settlement, with the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and (iv) called for respect of human rights of those who wanted to leave the country.” Though this resolution did not criticize the ruling Taliban, it was able to include all that was needed by us.

Respect for India has not only braved the whimsical attitude of the current Taliban government but has even increased to the utter despair and worry of our neighbour's deep state. Pakistan, which acted as a midwife in the birth of Taliban 1.0 in the nineties at the behest of the USA, wanted to establish its credentials as the sole facilitator in bringing China closer to the new Afghan regime and a controller of the foreign policy of the new government, got a taste of its bitter pill when the new regime refused to give any credit to Pakistan. Though China has its eyes on the immense mineral wealth of Afghanistan, it hardly needs Pakistan as a broker for establishing close relations with Afghanistan.

While we are now reaping the fruits of our regular humanitarian and developmental involvement in Afghanistan for decades, Pakistan is now reaping what it had sowed in Afghanistan- only hatred arising out of its utter selfish motive of Pakistan. Pakistan’s farce has been exposed further deteriorating the relations between the two countries. The country, born out of the misguided principle of the need for a nation for Muslims on religious grounds, is now staring at the prospect of division based on ethnicity. Afghanistan has been, at least since 2001, demanding that the Pashto-speaking areas of Pakistan should be given to Afghanistan as there should be ‘no boundary between the people with the same ethnic origin and speaking the same language.

All our friends, especially the USA, the UK, and Russia, do understand our motive and appreciate the same which gives us a comfortable foothold in the region. The Moscow dialogue has further strengthened our ties with Russia and the CAS. With Iran, Russia, CAS, and India having a convergence of views on Afghanistan, Pakistan’s self-isolation and self-destruction are not far. The die has already been cast!

J K Tripathi is a former Ambassador