Updated: September 13, 2020 8:42:18 am
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar joined the ceremony via video link, while the South Block sent a senior official to Doha to attend the meeting.
Noting a carefully calibrated change in its position on Taliban involvement, India on Saturday took part in the opening ceremony of intra-Afghan talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in the Qatari capital Doha.
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar joined the ceremony via video link, while the South Block sent a senior official to Doha to attend the meeting.
Jaishankar told the meeting that the peace process must be “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled,” “respect the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan” and “promote human rights and democracy.” .
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Neither he nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made any reference to “externally sponsored terrorism”; this has always been a reference to Pakistan.
In its statement on Saturday, the MEA only said that “the problem of violence throughout the country and its neighborhood must be addressed effectively.”
The Indian presence at the Doha ceremony, attended by a 21-member Taliban delegation, is a significant advance, indicating that New Delhi has nuanced its position given the reality on the ground in Afghanistan and the changing power structure in Kabul. .
On February 29, when the pact between the United States and the Taliban was being signed, India asked P Kumaran, its then ambassador to Qatar, to attend the ceremony.
The participation on Saturday of Jaishankar and JP Singh, Deputy Secretary (Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a definitive step in their engagement with the Taliban, which is negotiating a new power-sharing agreement in Afghanistan.
In February, on the eve of the signing of the pact in Doha, Foreign Minister Harsh Vardhan Shringla flew to Kabul where “he stressed that sustainable peace in Afghanistan requires an end to foreign sponsored terrorism.” But the MEA made no such reference in its statement on Saturday.
After the ceremony, Jaishankar, in a Twitter post, said: “He addressed the conference on Afghan peace negotiations in Doha today. He conveyed that the peace process must: Be Afghan-led, owned, and controlled by the Afghans; Respect the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan; Promote human rights and democracy ”.
He underscored India’s approach and the MEA statement developed the Delhi position. He said the minister “conveyed that India’s policy on Afghanistan had been consistent. India believes that any peace process must be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and controlled, must respect the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan and preserve the progress made in establishing a democratic Islamic Republic in Afghanistan ”.
Government sources said this means that the Afghan constitutional framework and the democracy introduced in the last 19 years must be kept intact and not dismantled.
“The interests of minorities, women and vulnerable sectors of society must be preserved and the problem of violence throughout the country and its neighborhood must be effectively addressed,” the MEA statement said.
This, the sources said, means that the attacks against Sikh minorities there must stop and the violence, which affects Afghanistan and India, must not take place. Indian interests, which include the Indian embassy and Indian companies and workers in Afghanistan, must also be protected, the sources said.
Jaishankar, the statement said, “wished the intra-Afghan negotiations successful to deliver to the people of Afghanistan what they have longed for: a peaceful and prosperous future in an independent and sovereign nation.” The use of the words “independent and sovereign” makes it clear that Pakistan and the ISI, the sources said, should not control the levers in Afghanistan.
In his speech, Jaishankar referred to the “age-old relationship” between India and Afghanistan, which he said had stood the test of time. He highlighted India’s role as a major development partner for Afghanistan with more than 400 projects completed in all 34 Afghanistan provinces, the MEA statement said.
New Delhi invoked its partnership in rebuilding and rebuilding Afghanistan over the past two decades, undertaking projects worth more than $ 3 billion, including the Afghan parliament.
Sources said India chose to attend the ceremony because the Afghan government was also at the table. Jaishankar had received an invitation to the ceremony from Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the MEA said.
Co-Secretary Singh, who flew to Doha to witness the ceremony, was First Secretary (Political) at the Indian Embassy in Kabul between 2008 and 2011 (the embassy was attacked on July 7, 2008) and later in Pakistan as High Commissioner Deputy from India.
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