Source: Associated Press
By Matthew Pennington
WASHINGTON – The drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan should not allow room for the Taliban to grow stronger as the militants could threaten regional security and global peace, an Indian opposition leader said Thursday.
Upper house opposition leader Arun Jaitley said that India has a stake in stabilizing Afghanistan, and the phased withdrawal of American troops should ensure peace and development and not leave any space for the Taliban to increase its activities.
His comments came the morning after President Barack Obama announced plans to bring 33,000 U.S. troops home by next summer in the opening phases of a withdrawal that is to be completed by 2014. There are currently about 100,000 U.S. troops in the country.
Jaitley, a prominent figure in India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, said that gains made in Afghanistan over the past decade should be consolidated. He told a news conference in Washington that the Taliban “is capable of not only destabilizing the region but is a threat to global peace itself.”
India is concerned over archrival Pakistan’s alleged support of militants. For its part, Pakistan is suspicious of India’s increasing assistance to Afghanistan, which it sees as an attempt to undermine Pakistan’s strategic interests.
Jaitley is visiting the U.S. for talks with lawmakers and government officials. Despite his party’s Hindu nationalist base, it was during its time in government that India began an on-and-off peace process with Pakistan seven years ago.
Jaitley said if Pakistan took action against terrorism, and severed links between state security agencies and Islamist groups including the Afghan Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Taiba group blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, it could lead to a more positive environment for the dialogue.
He said so far Pakistan has not shown willing, and its conduct since the killing of Osama bin Laden on its soil made him doubtful “whether the establishment in Pakistan is willing to move away from its conventional policy of using terrorism as an instrument of state policy.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that Pakistan’s militant links remain problematic for India but the U.S. is encouraged at the recent resumption of peace talks. Senior diplomats of the two countries are meeting in Islamabad this week to discuss long-running disputes including control of the divided Kashmir region.
“India looks at Pakistan and believes their continuing support for elements of insurgencies against India in Kashmir and across the border in India proper makes it very difficult to know what path to choose,” Clinton told a congressional hearing Thursday. “We have encouraged both sides to go as far they could to build confidence and to have an atmosphere of greater co-operation.”