India says has interest in stable Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (PAN, where both countries wanted democratic institutions to be strong, stable and inclusive, New Delhi’s top diplomat in Washington said on Monday.

“When you look at Afghanistan, you can enumerate the shared interests that India and the United States do have when it comes to not only the current situation in Afghanistan but post-2014 — the peace process in Afghanistan should be Afghan-led and Afghan-governed,” the ambassador said.

Nirupama Rao told a Washington audience India and the United States agreed Afghanistan should not want to return to the pre-2001 situation.

“We we would like Afghan security forces to be increasingly able to stand on their feet; and that we would like safe havens and any incidents of terrorism in our neighbourhood to be dealt with firmly and to be eradicated,” she added.

The shared interests definitely populated the dialogue between India and the US on Afghanistan, she said in her address to the conservative think-tank, The Heritage Foundation, which also released its report “Beyond the Plateau in US-India Relationship.”

Published jointly in association with the Observer Foundation, the special report laid out suggestions for carefully deepening the US–India partnership over the next few years, across a range of shared interests. “The current plateau in the relationship represents a reality check and opportunity to shed accumulated assumptions,” the report said.

According to the report, although India and the United States share the goal of stabilizing Afghanistan, they differ on how to achieve it.

“On the key question of political reconciliation with the Taliban‘s territory as a triumph of hope over experience,” the report said.

Views: 2