Afghanistan’s top peace negotiator Abdullah Abdullah is expected to visit India on Oct. 6 as part of an outreach to key countries in the region seeking support for negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, they said on Saturday. people familiar with the events.
Abdullah, chairman of the Higher Council for National Reconciliation in Afghanistan, will travel to India after a three-day visit to Pakistan that ended on Wednesday. This is his first visit to India after the formation of a new government in Kabul after last year’s turbulent elections.
The people quoted above said, on condition of anonymity, that Abdullah is expected to meet with top Indian leaders to seek support for the intra-Afghan negotiations currently taking place in Doha in Qatar. India had sent an official delegation to Doha to attend the event marking the start of the negotiations and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, S Jaishankar, also addressed the event.
In his speech, Jaishankar said that any new dispensations arising from the intra-Afghan dialogue process must ensure that Afghanistan’s soil is never used for anti-Indian activities.
Senior Afghan leader Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum visited India on September 25 and held talks on the peace process with Jaishankar, who told him that New Delhi remains committed to Afghan-led, controlled and controlled negotiations.
During his interaction with the Pakistani media in Islamabad, Abdullah said that both Pakistan and Afghanistan are on “the same page” on the issues of reducing violence and showing flexibility in the ongoing negotiations in Doha. These views should be emphasized in “messages communicated to the Taliban,” he said.
India, the region’s largest provider of development aid to Afghanistan, has expressed concern about the recent surge in violence by the Taliban and terrorist attacks against minorities such as Sikhs. He has said that intra-Afghan negotiations must guarantee the interests of minorities, women and vulnerable sectors of society and reduce violence in and around Afghanistan.
Since 2001, India has undertaken projects worth $ 3 billion in Afghanistan, including $ 1 billion pledged in 2016 under the “new partnership for development” scheme for five years.
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