New Delhi: India and five central Asian countries asserted on Sunday, December 19, the need for Afghanistan to have a “truly representative and inclusive” government and the need for immediate humanitarian aid for Afghan people.
This consensus was announced in the joint statement of the third India-Central Asia dialogue on Sunday. It was attended by the foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.
In his opening remarks, Turkmenistan deputy prime minister foreign minister Rashid Meredov stated that there would be an India-Central Asia summit in January this year. There had been media reports that the five central Asian leaders would be invited to be chief guests at Republic Day celebrations next year. Notably, there was no mention of the proposed summit in the joint statement.
As expected, the situation in Afghanistan dominated the proceedings, as the Central Asian countries are immediate neighbours of the war-ravaged nation.
India’s external affairs minister S. Jaishankar noted that all participants had similar “concerns and objectives” in Afghanistan.
The ministers agreed that there was a broad regional consensus on many issues related to Afghanistan. As per the joint statement, the agreement was on the need for a “truly representative and inclusive government, combating terrorism and drug trafficking, the central role of the UN, providing immediate humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people and preserving the rights of women, children and other national ethnic groups”.
Last month, national security advisors of the central Asian countries had also attended a Delhi Regional Security Dialogue, a one-day conference on Afghanistan.
On the current humanitarian situation, the joint statement stated that they agreed to “continue to provide immediate humanitarian aid to the Afghan people”.
Following the Taliban takeover on August 15, there had also been an exodus of former Afghan government officials, including security personnel, into central Asian countries, especially Tajikistan.
After the fall of the Afghan republic and the conquest of Kabul by the Taliban, India, along with western countries, had withdrawn all diplomatic personnel. The central Asian countries had, however, kept their embassies open and maintained regular contact with the Taliban regime, even though no government has officially recognised the new dispensation. Most of them had also sent truckloads of assistance to Afghanistan, where the collapse of the economy and drought has led to the possibility of a devastating humanitarian disaster.
Earlier this month, India sent a planeload of medicines to Kabul on the first special civilian flight since August. New Delhi is also negotiating modalities to send 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan through Pakistani soil.
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The foreign ministers also reiterated their support for UN Security Council resolution 2593 that “unequivocally demands that Afghan territory not be used for sheltering, training, planning or financing terrorist acts and called for concerted action against all terrorist groups”.
On terrorism, there was a joint condemnation that the use of “terrorist proxies for cross-border terrorism, terror financing, arms and drugs trafficking, dissemination of a radical ideology and abuse of cyber space to spread disinformation and incite violence, goes against the basic principles of humanity and international relations”.
They also agreed that “perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of terrorist acts must be held accountable and brought to justice in accordance with principle of “extradite or prosecute”.”