New Delhi
14 June 2010
Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao has said that the issue of peace and stability
in Afghanistan needs to be addressed separately and comprehensively and not within
the matrix of India-Pakistan relations, a view which was concurred by the delegates from
Kabul who participated in a conference here Sunday rpt Sunday.
Her remarks at the Afghanistan-India-Pakistan trialogue organised by Delhi Policy Group
here should be seen in the context of the refrain in certain capitals of the world that India-
Pakistan rivalry has impeded regional peace and that India and Pakistan should resolve
their differences for peace and stability in Afghanistan.
Matt Waldman, a Harvard fellow, has argued in his report released Sunday that the
fundamental causes of Pakistan's insecurity, in particular its conflict with India, must be
addressed on priority if the situation in Afghanistan is to improve. Similarly, Stanley
McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, had said last year that the
increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions.
Ms Rao dismissed the sceptics by iterating that India's developmental efforts in
Afghanistan are by no definition activities that are inimical to the interest of the people of
Afghanistan or its neighbours.
"India neither sees Afghanistan as a battleground for competing national interests nor
assistance to Afghan reconstruction and development as a zero sum game," she noted.
The foreign secretary had a word of advice for Pakistan, too: Asymmetries in size and
development should not prevent it from working together with India in realising a vision
of friendly, bilateral relations.
"Pakistan should shed its insecurity on these counts," Ms Rao elaborated, observing
that India's defence posture and capabilities are not of an offensive nature, and not
targeted against any country, including Pakistan.
Ms Rao, who is likely to visit Islamabad to prepare the ground for External affairs
minister SM Krishna's talks with his Pakistan counterpart in July, reinforced India's
desire to pick up the threads of the peace process from where it was left off by saying
that "we also have to reaffirm the progress made through complex negotiations and
dialogue through patient and unsung effort whether in the composite dialogue or back
channel diplomacy[.] We must seek creative solutions."
However, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has dismissed claims by
his predecessor Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri that India and Pakistan had come close to
resolving the Kashmir dispute and that an agreement had been reached in back-channel
talks on the basis of proposals forwarded by the then Pakistan president Gen Pervez
Musharraf (Retd).
Radha Kumar from the Delhi Policy Group maintained that New Delhi should be
"consistently persistent" in keeping up the offer of dialogue and not lose interest if
Islamabad does not reciprocate India's overtures.
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