NEW DELHI, 27 August 2005 — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh heads tomorrow to Kabul for the first visit by an Indian premier in 29 years, carrying offers of fresh aid and seeking to blunt rival Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan.
Manmohan will also be trying to gain sway with ethnic groups, especially Pashtuns, contesting September’s landmark parliamentary elections which remnants of the ousted hard-line Taleban regime have vowed to disrupt.
India, one of the six top donors to Afghanistan, has pledged $500 million in aid to Kabul since 2002 and Manmohan would unveil fresh assistance of $50 million during the visit, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran announced yesterday. “The fresh assistance would be on small developmental projects benefiting grassroots levels and this would help in the reconstruction of the country,” he told a press conference.
“Although we are involved in major projects in the infrastructure sector we felt the time has come to shift focus to the local community level.” Saran also said Delhi was helping in the modernization of the Afghan Army and police and has trained 800 personnel including diplomats since 2003, but lashed out at Pakistan for not granting transit rights to Indian aid for landlocked Afghanistan.
“This will continue to be a constraint in our effort to assist Afghanistan but we are working on the improvement of the infrastructure through Iran,” he said. Saran said India had close ties with India-educated Afghan President Hamid Karzai even before he took over the reins in December 2001 and stressed the war-ravaged nation’s recovery was of political and strategic interest to India.
“India wants Afghanistan to emerge as a democratic, independent, sovereign country fully in control of its own destiny and we believe the relationship with India will contribute to that,” he said.
Manmohan’s two-day visit will be the first by an Indian head of government to Afghanistan since 1976 when then Premier Indira Gandhi flew to Kabul. During the trip former Afghan king Zahir Shah will flag off an India-aided project to build a new Parliament building.
Expert Ramakant Dwidevi of the military-funded Indian Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis said Manmohan would also try to woo the dominant ethnic group the Pasthuns during his visit. “It is vital for India to make inroads among the Pashtuns if it wants to enhance its presence and blunt Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan,” Dwidevi said.
“The Taleban are mainly spawned from the Pashtuns who are closest to Pakistan and it would be a diplomatic coup for India if it wins over this community. That will rob Islamabad of whatever influence it still has over the extremist forces in Afghanistan,” he said.
Foreign secretary Saran said India would offer all help to crush remnants of the Taleban in Afghanistan. “The stability of Afghanistan and its economic recovery continues to be hampered by Taleban elements and these elements have to be kept under control.
“We have offered our full support in dealing with this newly emerging threat to their political stability.” India enjoyed cosy ties with most Afghan groups but these were jolted in 1979 when it refused to oppose the invasion of Afghanistan by its Cold War ally the Soviet Union, sparking a bloody conflict which ended after Moscow pulled back its forces in 1989.
However, New Delhi regained part of the good will by backing the Northern Alliance which helped overthrow the Pakistan-supported Taleban in November 2001 and since then has been a key regional backer of Karzai.
