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India-Russia JWG meeting |
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The two-day meeting of India-Russia Joint Working Group on Afghanistan ended in New Delhi on Oct. 1 with the agreement that there were no bad or good terrorists, implying that the war against terrorism could not differentiate among terrorists. This is a reference to Pakistani contentions that there were moderate elements in the Taliban as well who could be won over to give them a role in the new post-Taliban Government. Both sides also agreed that in any such future government there can be no place for the Taliban movement.
The Indian delegation to the talks was led by Foreign Secretary Ms Chokila Iyer and the Russian delegation by Vyacheslav I. Trubnikov, First Deputy Foreign Minister.
Lambasting the fundamentalist regime, India and Russia were of the opinion that “the obscurantist, malevolent, extremist and violent ideologies on which the Taliban movement is based, will pose a substantial danger to the stability of any broad-based multi-ethnic government, in addition to providing a fillip to terrorism and narcotics-smuggling emanating from Afghanistan.”
Political observers say, US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statements about the possible incorporation of “moderate Taliban” elements in Afghanistan’s political future has understandably worried countries like India, Russia and Iran against whom the Taliban is actively carrying out its terror campaign. India and Russia’s problems are compounded by the fact that the presence of the Taliban in any political structure in Afghanistan will be leveraged by Pakistan which is an active sponsor of the fundamentalist regime and aids its export of terror. The Taliban’s inclusion post-Operation Enduring Freedom would imply the perpetuation of dangerous irritant to New Delhi and Moscow once the US withdraws from the region. In fact during the visit of Colin Powell to New Delhi on Oct 17, the Indian leadership had impressed upon the American side that a “moderate Taliban” was a contradiction in terms and that India was looking at a healthy, broad-based, multi-ethnic regime to replace the militia, an arrangement that could also include the deposed King Zahir Shah.
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