NEW DELHI (Pajhwok): Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday said his country should not be seen as a battlefield of proxy war, calling a lack of coordination between states a major challenge to fighting terror.
After his daylong engagements with the Indian leaders, Ghani, who is on a three-day visit to India, in his keynote speech at the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) said “everyone must come together to fight terrorism.”
“All must mobilise to fight terror,” he said, adding that terrorists were focusing on “brutality to awe the population” and there is a lack of coordination in fighting terror between states along with a slow bureaucracy of governments.
“We are dealing with a new ecology of terror. Terror is becoming a system. Morally it is reprehensible; sociologically it must be comprehended as a system. It is morphing very rapidly,” said Ghani, adding that it is embedded within the criminal economy.
“Unprecedented amount of finance is being made available to this new ecology. It is becoming networked very rapidly. It kills for the sake of killing and overwhelming,” said Ghani.
He said within this ecology of terror Afghanistan is seen as a single theatre. “We are the battlefront, … we are fighting on behalf of every one of our neighbours from India to Russia,” he said, adding that the challenge is the state system to respond.
“The main threat therefore is not from the phenomenon or ecology of terror but the main threat is from the lack of coordination between states,” he said.
“What do we view ourselves, certainly not as a battlefield for proxy war, certainly not as a space to be contested over, certainly not as a buffer to be dominated. What we offer is a model of cooperation, a platform where all can come together to build solid institutions and all can live in comfort and dignity,” he said.
He said Afghanistan’s mineral resources were a big advantage for others to come and explore it.
“In the next 15 years we will become the largest producer of copper in the world, the largest producer of iron in the world. One of the largest players in the gold market globally.”
“We have 14 of the 17 earth materials. Our marble resources are enough to last the region for 400 years. 33 percent of Afghanistan’s natural resources have been mapped. The estimated worth is 1 to 3 trillion dollars.”
The president said: “With India and China’s transformation, this natural wealth awaits to become part of a continental framework,” Ghani said, adding that one must think regionally to realise the full potential of Afghanistan.
He hoped to see a day when one could have breakfast in New
Delhi, lunch in Peshawar and dinner in Kabul, something coordination between states could make achievable.
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