Afghan President Hamid Karzai deepened his country’s ties with India on Tuesday, signing a strategic partnership that is bound to raise suspicion in Pakistan at a time of shifting alliances in South Asia.
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have long been fragile, have soured over accusations that Islamabad has been covertly funding militant groups carrying out attacks in the neighboring country.
Karzai, speaking at a news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, stressed again that “terrorism” was being used “as an instrument of policy against our citizens” in a veiled reference to Pakistan.
Photo: AFP
The strategic partnership deal sealed with India — the first such pact between Afghanistan and another country — deepens already friendly ties and aims to boost trade, security and cultural links between the countries.
Singh said the deal “creates an institutional framework for our future cooperation,” while adding that separate agreements on energy and mining “add a new dimension to our economic relations.”
“India will stand by the people of Afghanistan as they prepare to assume the responsibility for their governance and security after the withdrawal of international forces in 2014,” he added.
However, Indian involvement in Afghanistan is extremely sensitive because of the delicate and often deadly power games in South Asia, with Pakistan vehemently opposed to its archfoe meddling in what it considers its backyard.
New Delhi, fearful of the return of an Islamist regime in Kabul, has plowed about US$2 billion of aid into the country to gain influence, helping fund highways and the new national parliament. Analysts in India had predicted that Karzai, angry at Pakistan and wary of a drawdown of US troops by 2014, would look to elevate India’s role in stabilizing his war-torn country.
However, some expressed concern that a greater role for India could lead to a more intense and dangerous proxy war between it and nuclear-armed Pakistan on Afghan territory, with unpredictable consequences.
“Delhi and Kabul are realistic enough to know that there can be no lasting peace in Afghanistan without a measure of Pakistan’s support,” C. Raja Mohan, from the Centre For Policy Research in New Delhi, wrote on Tuesday.
The agreement, released in full late on Tuesday included commitments by India to assist with the training and equipping of Afghan security forces, offer more scholarships for Afghan students and facilitate bilateral trade.
Both countries said they would work together more closely in international forums such as the UN, ensure exchanges between parliamentarians and work for “everlasting peace and friendship between the two governments.”
The Afghan president’s trip, his second to India this year, comes after the assassination last month of former Afhan president and peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was killed by a Pakistani citizen according to Karzai’s office.
The deputy head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security intelligence agency, Mohammad Yasin Zia, on Tuesday accused Pakistan of refusing to cooperate with investigations into the killing in Kabul.
Islamabad rejected the accusations. Indian political analyst Subhash Agrawal, head of India Focus, a private think tank, said the Singh-Karzai talks were “very significant in light of Afghanistan accusing Pakistan of being involved in the killing of Rabbani.”
“This visit creates more of a natural window for India to have a sustainable role in Afghanistan post-2014,” Agrawal said.
The changing Afghan-Indian dynamic also comes amid a sharp deterioration in ties between Pakistan and the US.
Washington has accused Islamabad of covertly funding militant groups in Afghanistan, while the killing of Osama bin Laden by US troops on Pakistani territory in May also hit relations.
Karzai’s failed talks with the Taliban and the strained relations with Pakistan have forced him to rethink his peace strategy.
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