In a message clearly aimed at Pakistan, India has asserted that no terror attack can impact the development assistance it provides to Afghanistan. The message has been conveyed during foreign secretary Sujatha Singh’s just-concluded visit to Afghanistan.
The message comes in the wake of the attempted attack by suicide bombers on the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan in July that left eight children dead and several others injured. India believes Pakistan was behind this attack with the suicide bombers said to have been identified as Pak nationals.
Coincidentally, the message was conveyed just as President Karzai heads to Islamabad on a one-day visit on Monday. It is expected that the two neighbours will attempt to mend their sour ties—these worsened further when Pakistan along with the US backed the Taliban to open an office in Qatar in June.
Indeed, as the Afghan endgame draws near and the couture prepares for the drawdown of US-led Nato forces scheduled for 2014, both India and Pakistan as close neighbours are jostling for space in Afghanistan. Well aware that a stable Afghanistan is in its interests, India is also considering providing the Afghan security forces with military equipment.
It’s a measure of the geo-strategic importance India attaches to Afghanistan that the new FS chose to make her first solo visit to this country. While in Afghanistan, Ms Singh also paid what was described as a special visit to the consulate in Jalalabad.
The FS also met the governor of Nangarhar province Gul Agha Sherzai Sherzai whose capital Jalalabad is. Nangarhar province which lies in eastern Afghanistan shares a border with Pakistan and is a hotbed of insurgent activity. Ms Singh also met her Afghan counterpart, Ershad Ahmadi and called on top Afghan leaders, among them president Hamid Karzai, 1st vice president Marshal Fahim, second vice president Karim Khalili who was in India last week and foreign minister Zalmai Rasool. New Delhi’s message expressing its “strong determination” to continue with its development work is also meant to tell Pakistan that this task will continue, regardless of Pak suspicion and apprehension about the work being done by India.