The contours of US President Trump’s new “South Asia” policy for Afghanistan will take shape next week with a series of high level interaction in Delhi, including the visit of US Defence Secretary James Mattis on September 25th, and the visit of Afghan Chief Executive Dr. Abdullah Abdullah later in the week for an India-Afghanistan business and investment expo sponsored by US AID. Ahead of the visit Afghanistan’s Ambassador to India Shaida Mohammad Abdali says that while the focus remains on development projects, India, that trains hundreds of Afghan soldiers each year is now preparing to train Afghan police officers as well, and rejected recent remarks by Pakistan PM Abbasi that India has no military role in Afghanistan.
India and Afghanistan have just committed to closer strategic ties and defence assistance. What does this mean specifically?
Frankly speaking, our concentration is still very much on economic and development issues, which is why our recent partnership council meeting focussed more on the development aspect of our bilateral relations; however we did agreed on further enhancing our security and defence cooperation. India announced 116 new development projects, enhanced training programmes, capacity building, dams and irrigation projects, renewable energy, housing schemes for the returnees and so on, because that is the need of the hour in Afghanistan, which we are discussing with all our strategic partners. Another reason we can focus on this aspect with India is because we now have long term assurances from the US and NATO countries, more than any time in the past. We have a four year plan, which means by 2022-23, we will receive a large fleet of military aircrafts including helicopters from the US, at a cost of about $6 billion. So we have this long term defence and security commitment. This doesn’t mean we exclude the possibility of further enhancing strategic and defence cooperation with our other friends like India. Last year when we were in real difficult situation in this respect, India helped us with four helicopters, which was crucial, and they were effectively used in our summer offensive.
With the US Defence Secretary Mattis coming to Delhi on Monday, what will they discuss when it comes to Afghanistan? This is the first high level US visit to India since Mr. Trump unveiled his new policy.
Look first, even before the new US policy, India and Afghan militaries were in constant touch over defence requirements and that conversation continues. For example, we have talked about the repair of the helicopters India provided us, and about our other old aircrafts to use during our defence transition process from Soviet-era hardware to new US military equipment. India’s help will be crucial, and we are working on this. India has reaffirmed that they will help us in any way possible. But as I understand, India is also constrained by its own capabilities, and may not be able to spare the hardware we need. But we are grateful for all that India has done so far. Strategically speaking we are now looking at building an army on western model. The recent four Blackhawks is part of our long term plan, and we are looking at over 200 aircrafts in 2023.
You spoke of the Indian commitment to repair Afghan planes from the Soviet era, …wasn’t this agreed to a year ago? Why has nothing moved yet?
Yes. It was agreed a year ago, but there are certain technical steps to be taken before the repairs process starts including the repair of the four helicopters that India gave us, now are in need of repair. So this is under discussion through the concerned military teams, along with discussing how India can help with old military planes that are non-functional at present.
Is there also a possibility of Indo-US collaborations in the military training? They have trained peacekeepers in Africa, could they do this, especially joint training for Special Op forces that Afghanistan needs?
At this point, there is no joint training programmes between India, US and Afghanistan, and it is for the governments of the three countries to decide on it in the future.
How about for just training?
Well, we are now working on a memorandum of understanding with India to train our police forces in addition to the Army. We have around 200 soldiers at a time being trained, including around 130 cadets at IMA, and many officers undergoing training as well, but we do want to increase the numbers being trained. We want to expand it to training Afghan police officers in India now. Because law and order is increasingly part of the security situation, and in order to deal with this we now have an MoU with UNDP for financial support for the training of police officers, with the venue for training being in India. We are hoping the MoU will be signed during the upcoming high level visit. We hope this training will grow and help further our counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan.
That will be a big new step, right?
And a very important step. From the beginning we lost the opportunity, and wasted precious time by focussing more on training the Army and defence forces and not training our police in parallel. But now since we are dealing with much more law enforcement issues internally, and not as much at the border, we want to build a well trained professional police force.
Why is India preferred for this over other countries?
India has always been an excellent partner for all our capacity building programmes. And we do have similiarities in some of the aspects of the conflict we face, so Indian knowledge and experience is going to be very useful for us, especially in areas like counter-terror, and narcotic activities.
How do you respond to the Pakistan Prime Minister’s comment in New York that India has no military role in Afghanistan?
I think the remarks were unfortunate, and shows that this cold-war era narrative persists, where relationships with one country are seen as a choice against another. But any country has the right to ask Afghanistan if their security is harmed by any activity on Afghan soil. However if there is no proof of this, then no country has the right to dictate or manipulate Afghanistan’s foreign policy. It must be remembered that when the rest of the region was still colonised, Afghanistan had its own independent foreign policy. Our goal is clear, we are building our defence and security forces so Afghanistan can defend itself against our enemy which is common to us all and that is terrorism. Why should anyone have a problem with that?
India and Afghanistan share an old and civilizational relationship, and it is in the basis of this relationship that the US has now asked India to do more in Afghanistan’s development effort. It is because of India’s excellent performance in the last 15 years in Afghanistan that India was called upon. India has been the largest donor in the region, and has always had a positive and popular role for the people of Afghanistan. It should instead be asked, why is India’s role only being recognised now?
Next week will see the first of its kind India-Afghanistan business expo that will be sponsored by USAID. Are the contours of a new US-Afghanistan-India policy taking shape?
Well the business expo has been planned for some time, but as it comes after the announcement of US President Donald Trump’s South Asia policy, it will get a bigger push. So this will be a good opportunity for India, Afghanistan and the US to develop their partnerships in Afghanistan. We are also going to hold a trilateral meeting at the director general level, where they will focus on further enhancing our cooperation in the economic and development field. Over time, the potential for this trilateral is substanial, and we expect it will grow, but I think we must see the US’s new policy as a win win opportunity for all of South Asia, not just the three countries. We expect everyone to be a party to peace and prosperity in Afghanistan, which will result in larger peace and prosperity of the region. I am glad to see a new resolve in the region, which we was in the context of the recent BRICS declaration on dealing with terrorism. Particularly, China and Russia are extremely important to reinforce this new resolve. We think Afghanistan’s voice has finally been heard.
Given the high civilian casualties last year, how do you think you will convince Indian companies at the expo to come to Afghanistan?
Certainly, we saw many casualties last year, but the era of uncertainty has gone and the new US policy is already effecting a change in the security situation. Because there is a clear message of continuity, of a long term commitment based on the condition on the ground not on timelines. This is a significant takeaway from the US policy, coupled with the action against safe havens, and of partnering India in development projects. We have to focus on both security and economic development at the same time. Investors should have the confidence that their investments will grow and pay back not just in Afghanistan but also in the region, given India’s recent commitment of operationalising the Chabahar port in Iranwithin a year, connecting Central Asia withSouth Asia. So they must see their investment in Afghanistan in the larger picture of what this investment will mean for the future.
You referred to the BRICS statement on tackling Pakistan based terror groups. Are you also seeing any movement on reconciliation…recent reports indicate that the Afghan NSA and other officials are in regular contact with Taliban leaders on talks, are they accurate?
So far, there have been many processes of talks, including the Quadrilateral, the Heart of Asia, and the Moscow format etc, but if you genuinely want an Afghan-led Afghan-owned and Afghan controlled process to succeed, then it should be process that the Afghan government has established and leads, which is the Kabul process. And what I can say at this point is that we are engaging in that process reinforced by other regional processes, and we hope this is genuinely backed by all,especially by Pakistan.
