Ahead of India-Pakistan foreign ministers’ dialogue this week, Pakistan’ s envoy to India Salman Bashir said on Monday that Afghans had a right to preserve their unity, and the outsiders could only play a facilitating role in this regard.
Despite attempts by India and Pakistan to revive dialogue process, Afghanistan has remained a ticklish issue for both, more so with the impending withdrawal of international forces from the country.
“What we want to see is that everyone respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, that unity of Afghanistan as a nation is preserved and this is something only Afghans can do; no outsider can play a role,” Bashir told Times of India, adding that the international community could only play a facilitating role. When asked about the Indian belief that Pakistan continues to use the Afghan Taliban as a strategic asset that could be turned into a force multiplier against India once it captures a fair share of power in Kabul, Bashir said: “Pakistan is mindful of its responsibilities as immediate neighbor of Afghanistan. It will do whatever it can to promote peace, stability and development there but this notion of a great game of which Afghanistan could be a perpetual victim, is misplaced,” Bashir said.
Pakistan has consistently complained about growing Indian activities in its western neighbor, pointing out that not all of these were economic or related to infrastructure development. A Pakistani newspaper recently reported about a circular issued by the Interior Ministry’s National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) were using Afghan agencies to fund factions of anti-Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which have been carrying out cross-border attacks from their sanctuaries in Afghanistan.
