KABUL’s neutral policy in the US-Iran tension, but demand Kabul converts the crisis into an opportunity and gets maximum advantage of it.
Tension between the US and Iran surged after Iranian Quds forces commander Qasem Suliamani was killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad on December 3.
Enraged by the killing of its top commander, Iran retaliated with firing dozens of ballistic missile into US military bases in Iraq. Iranian forces also shot down an Ukrainian passenger plane in which 167 passengers were killed.
Two days after the incident, Iranian officials acknowledged downing the plan and termed it a human error.
The Afghanistan Center of Strategic Studies (ACSS) organized a gathering in Kabul to discuss the ongoing US-Iran tension and its impact on Afghanistan.
Aryan Sharifi, former NDS head for threat assessment, said the US-Iran tension would not impact Afghanistan negatively because the Tehran-Washington tension was historic and had roots in the past.
He said the US and Iran had paralleled interests in Afghanistan not opposite, therefore the two countries would not want to drag Afghanistan into their crisis.
Sharifi said Afghanistan had decided to remain neutral in the Iran and US crisis and Kabul should continue this policy.
After the killing of Sulaimani, Afghanistan said in the light of Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US, Afghanistan will not allow the use of its soil against another country.
Mahmood Saiqal, Afghanistan’s former representative in the UN, said: “In diplomacy, crisis is always there but as well as opportunities, maybe the US, Iran tension becomes an opportunity for some and crisis for others,” he said.
Saikal said Afghanistan should assure its neighbors that it would not become a party to any conflict and will not allow its soil against its neighbors.
Nh/ma
