New Delhi: - Deputy Chief of Mission M. Ashraf Haidari delivered a closing address at an International Conference on "The Changing Scenario in Afghanistan: Implications for South Asia," hosted by the South Asian University on October 23, 2013. The daylong conference with international participants, including speakers from Afghanistan and India, discussed Afghanistan's achievements over the past 12 years, and highlighted a number of major, complex challenges still confronting the country with far-reaching implications for regional peace and stability. In his address, Mr. Haidari focused on a number of key issues, which were discussed during the Conference and noted that the consolidation of Afghanistan's 12-year gains were necessary in order to maintain regional stability and international peace and security. A full copy of his address is below.
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Valedictory Address By M. Ashraf Haidari, the Deputy Chief of Mission (Minister Counselor) of Afghanistan to India, International Conference on “The Changing Scenario in Afghanistan: Implications for South Asia” – South Asian University - New Delhi – October 23, 2013
Ambassador Vivek Katju,
President G. K. Chadha,
Chairperson Dr. Siddharth Mallavarapu,
Distinguished Scholars,
Dear Students,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am most honored and delighted to share with you the Afghan perspective on the situation in Afghanistan and the way forward. Indeed, I am grateful to the South Asian University for hosting this timely International Seminar to examine the implications of post-2014 Afghanistan on the region. I also wish to thank the many leading Indian experts—including current and former senior civilian and military officials of the Indian government—for their participation in today’s Seminar. It is our shared hope that their in-depth analytical discussion of what is at stake in Afghanistan would positively impact on the formulation of constructive bilateral and multilateral policies in support of consolidating Afghanistan’s 12-year gains now and beyond 2014, in order to ensure regional stability and international peace and security.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In an increasingly interdependent, interconnected, and shrinking world, security and stability in one country depend on the security and stability of the rest. This is especially the case with landlocked countries, whose sustainable security and development squarely depend on an enabling regional environment. Afghanistan is a landlocked country, and we heavily rely on regional cooperation for our economic growth, for our political stability, and for the protection and defense of our homeland against external, state and non-state threats.
However, as it was discussed today, recalling from the recent history of Afghanistan, regional and international actors have not always been kind to us, indeed, at their own peril on the long run. During the Cold War, Afghanistan was compelled to side with the West led by the United States, and together we ended the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and subsequently toppled the Communist Regime, which the former Soviet Union supported. After this victory, the Afghan people rightfully expected the international community and the United States in particular to help stabilize and rebuild our country so that peace, freedom, and democracy could gradually take root and become institutionalized in the pluralistic society of Afghanistan.
On the contrary, however, soon after the fall of the Communist Regime, following the withdrawal of the defeated Soviet forces from Afghanistan, the post-war reconstruction and stabilization of our country were completely neglected. Morally speaking, we were not rewarded for the destruction of our country, the killing of over two million Afghans, and the displacement of over five million others, all caused by a Cold War proxy conflict that we fought on behalf of the West.
As the world disengaged from Afghanistan prematurely, our state institutions began failing, our politics became factionalized, and our country turned into a no man’s land, serving as a battlefield for regional proxy conflicts. This subsequently allowed Pakistan to create and launch a paramilitary force labeled as “Taliban” to invade and occupy Afghanistan. And overtime, as we recall, the Taliban invited and sheltered the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, in Afghanistan, from where he and his transnational terrorist network comfortably masterminded and executed the tragedy of 9/11.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Anyone who visited Afghanistan under the Taliban 12 years ago and has visited the country since would tell you about the fundamental ways in which Afghanistan has been transformed. Our monumental achievements of the past 12 years result from the sacrifices of many nations in Afghanistan. And we remain indebted to each of the 48 nations, which have been providing us with moral and material support over the past decade.
At the same time, we are grateful to the Indian people and government for sharing their bread with us over the past 12 years. India’s generous assistance has complemented the aid provided by the U.S. and other countries in building institutional capacity in our government, in rebuilding our critical infrastructure, and in connecting our country commercially with the rest of the region.
As a result of combined international aid over the past 12 years:
1- Over 10.5 million Afghans are enrolled in schools across Afghanistan. Each year, more than 150,000 students graduate to pursue higher education in Afghanistan and abroad, including in India where we have nearly 10,000 students pursuing degrees in the different fields;
2- Our per capita GDP of $591 in 2011 is five times higher than $123 per capita GDP of 10 years ago;
3- Nearly 8,000 kilometers of national highways, regional highways, and provincial roads have been built, cutting travel time by 75%;
4- Moreover, civil aviation has improved, connecting Afghanistan with major regional hubs;
5- Access to electricity has increased by 250%, while over 18 million Afghans have mobile phones. Collectively, this has helped us maintain a 10% growth rate, creating many jobs that never existed in the Afghan history;
6- And democracy is flourishing: we have the freest media in the region; the most progressive constitutions in the region, allowing 27% of the MPs in the Parliament to be women. At the same time, Afghanistan’s civil society has grown more and more vibrant, frequently challenging the government and holding it to account.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
These and many of our other achievements are naturally a work in progress. To ensure their consolidation into sustainable gains, we have signed a number of Strategic Partnership Agreements with our allies in the region and beyond. These Agreements build on the objectives of the Istanbul, Bonn, Chicago, and Tokyo conferences on Afghanistan, helping us transition towards self-reliance in the post 2014 period into a decade of transformation.
India and the US are two of our major strategic allies, and the Agreements we have signed with them provide for their continued support to Afghanistan beyond 2014. In an effort to work together towards our common objectives to help stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan, our three countries have established a Trilateral Strategic Dialogue, which has met two times so far. But the mechanism remains under-utilized, which must be reinvigorated and used to ensure strategic coordination of the U.S. and Indian aid efforts, in support of Afghanistan now and beyond 2014.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As we solidify our achievements of the past 12 years with continued international support, we have increasingly taken over from our allies the tasks that any sovereign country should execute on its own. Last June, the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) took over from the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) the complete leadership and ownership of all military operations across Afghanistan. The ANSF is now providing protection for the whole Afghan population, while NATO-ISAF has begun its new mission of advising, training, and equipping the ANSF.
In spite of the ongoing successes of the ANSF against the enemy, our forces are yet to be fully independently operational. We continue to lack an Air Force and other such critical enablers as artillery, armored mobility, reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities, close air support capabilities, airlift and medical evacuation capabilities, as well as logistics and maintenance mechanisms that constitute the backbone of any force.
To help address these needs, we are going to sign a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States. At the same time, we have provided India with a list of needs to assist us with. We believe that India can fill some of the training and equipping gaps in the Afghan National Security Forces, and we look forward to enhanced defense cooperation with the country, based on the Afghanistan-India Strategic Partnership Agreement.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Parallel to the security transition, the Afghan government has striven to ensure the success of our political transition through implementation of a legitimate, fair, and transparent presidential election next year on April 5, 2014. President Karzai has avoided supporting any specific candidate, allowing various electoral teams and coalitions to form and debate the way forward in the electoral process. Just yesterday, out of a total of 27 registered candidates, the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan declared 10 0f these candidates to be eligible for running in the next presidential election.
At the same time, we remain committed to ending the war in Afghanistan through peace, which should only result in the further strengthening of our sovereignty and territorial integrity. That is the basic expectation of the Afghan people, the victims of more than three decades of war, who continue to fight and die day after day and year after year to ensure the absolute freedom and independence of our country, nothing less.
With that basic fact firmly in mind, the Afghan government and people are cautiously seeking a negotiated settlement with the armed opposition, including the Taliban. And that means an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and Afghan-controlled peace process where only Afghans talk to Afghans, with non-Afghans only facilitating the process at the request of the Afghan government.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The new government of Pakistan has taken initial, bold steps towards honest cooperation with Afghanistan. The Afghan people and government welcome with great optimism Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s call for a new policy that sees the end of interference in the Afghan affairs now and beyond 2014.
Following these new policy announcements, President Karzai visited Islamabad and asked, in light of the ongoing demand of the Afghan people and the international community, that the new leadership of Pakistan use his strong popular mandate against the dark forces of extremism and terrorism that continue undermining the security of Afghanistan and Pakistan alike, while destabilizing the whole region. At the same time, the President asked that Afghanistan and Pakistan join hands in the fight against terrorism, while calling upon the Prime Minister to use their acknowledged, strong influence over the Taliban to facilitate the stalled peace process.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Isolationism, narrowly-defined foreign policies, zero-sum strategic designs, or duplicitous relations with neighbors no longer serve the long-term interests of any nation, in an increasingly interdependent world of interconnected regions and sub-regions. We know that the most developed and secure regions of the world consist of countries that no longer undermine each other or act as spoilers of peace and stability in the their respective region. They think in win-win, reciprocal terms, striving together to achieve their shared objectives for the common good of all.
Europe is a prime example. The Second World War was triggered by the pursuit of shortsighted, totalitarian agendas that disregarded collective peace and prosperity. Consequently, the European countries learned the hard way that it was only through regional cooperation—based on a concept of achieving maximum social, economic, and political integration—that they could ensure their long-term collective well-being, within a democratic institutional framework.
In South Asia and Central Asia, we cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of other regions in the past. We must only learn from them in order to ensure sincere, results-oriented regional cooperation for the resolution of our shared security challenges and for the exploitation of our shared economic opportunities.
The common challenges confronting us include: terrorism, drug-trafficking, widespread poverty, lack of infrastructure for trade and investment, food insecurity, and environmental degradation. Of course, some of these major challenges transcend borders and therefore can hardly be addressed by one or two countries alone, unless we all join hands to address them together. And this is what the annual summits of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), among others, have repeatedly concluded. So, there has emerged a solid consensus based on numerous bilateral and multilateral meetings and consultations in the region that South Asia and Central Asia must no longer sit on the sidelines and wait for extra-regional actors to come and resolve our problems.
But this does not mean that we should cut ties with our respective friends and allies beyond our immediate region. Rather, we should enlist their continued assistance in support of our regional efforts to address the problems that most immediately affect us, but also affect them and others beyond our region.
Thus, now is the time for all regional stakeholders to recommit the necessary resources, backed by strong political will, to overcoming our common security problems and to exploiting the many opportunities for regional economic cooperation. Only pursuing this path towards our shared destiny will lead our region into greater peace and prosperity for all. But as we recall from the 1990s, the alternative will only bring us more of the same spillovers of one or more failed states in the region.
Thank you.
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