With some help from friends, India to turn the heat on Taliban

Despite protests from Pakistan, Iran had maintained that India’s participation was needed to solve the Afghan crisis

Sonia Trikha

New Delhi, April 30: SINCE India is likely to engage with Pakistan on the sidelines of SAARC this summer, it has decided to turn the heat on Afghanistan, hoping that Islamabad too would feel it.

India started tightening the noose around Taliban during Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee’s visit to Iran. This will be carried forward in its talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov who arrives in New Delhi on May 3 as well as in discussions with President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmanov who will be in India from May 9 to 12.

Tajikistan is strategically located in central Asia bordering Afghanistan. There is also likely to be an engagement with the United States on the
issue.

Despite protests from Pakistan, Iran had stated that India’s participation was necessary for a solution to the Afghan crisis. This statement, made during Vajpayee’s visit to Tehran, was also welcomed by China. These actions by India and other supporting countries have coincided with Northern Alliance chief Ahmad Shah Masood leading an anti-Taliban march through the capitals of Europe. Early in April, Masood left northern Afghanistan for Dushanbe, Tajikistan, from where he flew to Paris to meet French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine. This was the first time Masood was making a trip to Europe. Until now, his movement had been restricted to Iran and Central Asian countries only.

In Europe, where he addressed the Europarliament in Strasbourg, he was hailed as the representative of the only legitimate government in Afghanistan by Vedrine. Paris allocated $3 million to help the anti-Taliban forces and also planned to send humanitarian aid to northern provinces of Afghanistan controlled by the Northern Alliance. The Taliban ambassador in Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaif claimed that the Masood’s invitation to the Europarliament dents its image as an independent and impartial body and would not go anywhere to settle the conflict.
On the Taliban, Europarliament Chairman Nikole Fontaine had this to say: ‘‘This disgraceful and criminal regime should be an object of international pressure’’.

And India, which has thus far dealt with the issue with a degree of detachment, hopes to be part of the pressure campaign. This anti-Taliban sentiment has never been stronger since the destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas and hundreds of monuments of pre-Islamic culture by the fundamentalist regime in Kabul, though there have been other factors too.

International terrorism is one factor that affects India directly. India has accused Afghanistan and Pakistan of exporting terrorists into Kashmir.