- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Afghanistan government may seek India’s military assistance at some point if its talks with the Taliban collapse amid withdrawal of the US forces from the country, Afghan envoy to India Farid Mamundzay has said. He though said Kabul is not seeking India’s direct military entry into Afghanistan.
Representatives of the Taliban and the Afghanistan government have been holding talks amid the extremist group’s growing control over the war-ravaged nation as the US looks to wind up its long war there by the end of August.
However, the talks supposedly taking place in Doha, the capital of Qatar, have fizzled out and the Taliban now appear to accomplish a complete military win, AFP reported on Tuesday (13).
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“Should we not get to a stage in the peace process with the Taliban, then maybe a time (will come) where we would be seeking India’s military assistance, more military assistance in the years ahead,” Mamundzay was quoted as saying by Indian media channel NDTV.
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Not direct military involvement
“We are not seeking India’s assistance with sending troops to Afghanistan. Their footprint in Afghanistan to fight our war would not be needed at this stage,” he said.
The diplomat explained how, for instance, the air force could help Afghanistan. He cited pilot training, for which India is “naturally a place”, as one area from where Afghanistan would like to take help from India.
Mamundzay, who recently slammed the US saying its troops withdrawal in an “unfashioned manner” led to a “chaotic and dire situation” in Afghanistan, said the government in Kabul is currently fighting the Taliban in around 150 of 376 districts.
“So one-third of the country is in active fight… Over two lakh people have been displaced internally in the country since April 2021 alone, with close to 4,000 killed,” he said.
On the civilian front, the ambassador listed 1,000 annual scholarships that India provides, some 20,000-odd Afghan students who are studying in India at the moment, the building of the new Afghan parliament and other infrastructure projects.
AFP reported that the insurgents have swept through much of northern Afghanistan in recent weeks and the government now holds little more than some provincial capitals that need to be reinforced and resupplied by air.
The Taliban have, however, said they do not intend to fight government forces inside cities.
Referring to the recent massacring of 22 government forces personnel by the Taliban, Mamundzay said, “This happened in the province of Faryab last month where 22 of our special forces were brutally murdered by Taliban at a time when they were surrendering.”
