Pune: - On August 4, 2014, Deputy Chief of Mission M. Ashraf Haidari spoke in an International Seminar on “Post 2014 Afghanistan after U.S. Drawdown: Rethinking India’s Policy,” co-hosted by the Yashwantrao Chavan National Center for International Security & Defense Analysis, University of Pune, and the Kunzru Center for Defense Studies & Research in Pune. Mr. Haidari provided the participating scholars from different Indian universities and former senior generals and diplomats of India with a comprehensive overview of the situation in Afghanistan, from an Afghan perspective. He noted that the long-term stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan was not only an issue of concern and interest to the Afghan people but it was also essential for ensuring regional stability and international security, particularly in light of the lessons learned from Afghanistan’s recent history as well as the widening instability caused by radicalized non-state actors in the Middle East.
Mr. Haidari noted that Afghanistan had been transformed over the past 13 years, listing the many achievements of the Afghan people, in partnership with the international community. He pointed out that Afghanistan had made substantive progress in the political and governance, security and defense, and social and economic areas. However, he explained the country’s decade-long gains still needed to be solidified and sustained, necessitating greater regional cooperation from Afghanistan key neighbors, including India, Iran, China, and Russia, as well as continued civilian and military assistance from the U.S. and NATO.
Moreover, Mr. Haidari praised the Afghan national security forces for securing two rounds of presidential elections in April and June when more than 7 million Afghans turned out to vote. “Indeed, the much more civilized, issue-based campaigns of the eight presidential candidates (later and now Two) and the high voter turnout demonstrated the maturity of our young democracy. This has restored the confidence and optimism of our people for a secure future, in continued partnership with the international cooperation,” he noted.
Mr. Haidari noted that “in the few critical years following the inauguration of our new President and the end of transition this year, our Government and people look forward to working with all regional and international stakeholders to institutionalize peace and democracy in Afghanistan.” He maintained that “succeeding in this endeavor is going to benefit us all, as I discussed in detail. But failing Afghanistan again will push us back to what we all bitterly experienced in the 1990s, a dark and ugly era that none of us will ever wish to revisit given our common pursuit of peace, security and prosperity for all in an interdependent, shrinking world.”
The full transcript of Mr. Haidari’s remarks is below:
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Remarks by M. Ashraf Haidari, Deputy Chief of Mission (Minister Counselor) of Afghanistan to India, on “The Afghan Perspective: Securing Afghanistan for Regional Stability and Global Peace” at the International Seminar on “Post 2014 Afghanistan after U.S. Drawdown: Rethinking India’s Policy.”
The Yashwantrao Chavan National Center for International Security & Defense Analysis, University of Pune, and the Kunzru Center for Defense Studies & Research.
Maharashtra-Pune, August 4-5, 2014
Excellencies,
Honorable Generals,
Distinguished Scholars,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am truly honored by the warm welcome and invitation to participate in this timely international seminar on post-2014 Afghanistan and the way forward for the people of Afghanistan, as well as for our neighbors, including India. I am delighted to provide you with an Afghan perspective on the topic of this important seminar, and look forward to listening to other participants’ views and analysis of what’s increasingly a regional and global issue of multi-dimensional concern and interest, indeed, not just that of Afghanistan alone.
Please allow me to commend the Directors of the Yashwantrao Chavan National Center for International Security & Defense Analysis and the Kunzru Center for Defense Studies & Research for making possible our gathering here today. I am particularly thankful to Professor Shrikant Paranjpe and his colleagues for the hard effort they’ve put into organizing this timely seminar.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
For the sake of our discussion today and tomorrow, which should produce results-oriented policy recommendations for all major regional and international stakeholders, I wish to recall the lessons of our recent history. As early as April 1988 when the Geneva Accords were signed, which provided for the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan, international support for the post-war reconstruction and stabilization of Afghanistan had unfortunately begun waning. Even though the international community pledged in a number of conferences to help post-war Afghanistan recover from a decade of devastations, they largely failed to deliver on their commitments, both before and after the collapse of the Afghan communist regime.
Following the end of the Cold War, the West, led by the United States, began treating Afghanistan as an isolated, far-flung country, which in their mind, no longer posed any security threat to them or to the broader international community. Much like preoccupation with domestic issues today, the Clinton Administration was largely focusing on: “it’s the economy, stupid!”
By the same token, the countries of the region were even more short-sighted and hardly valued the importance of stabilizing and rebuilding post-war Afghanistan so that they could focus on a win-win agenda of regional economic cooperation and integration. Instead, while some of our neighbors completely ignored the needs of post-war Afghanistan, others exploited the vacuum of premature international disengagement to turn our country into their proxies’ battlefield. And the Afghan people bore the brunt of all proxy conflicts, which were mischaracterized by our neighbors as “the Afghan civil war.”
Overtime, however, America’s neglecting of our country’s post-war stabilization and reconstruction and our neighbors’ destructive interference in the Afghan affairs began backfiring. The Taliban—which Pakistan created, deployed into Afghanistan and wished to control—gradually started acting independently, as they developed ties with dangerous transnational non-state actors, including Al Qaeda and organized criminal groups, including drug traffickers.
Under the Pakistani-backed, barbaric rule of the Taliban, our state institutions gradually collapsed and completely evaporated by the end of 1990s, while millions of Afghans were internally displaced or fled to Pakistan and Iran. Those that remained behind were brutalized under the tyranny of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which effectively began using Afghanistan as a no man’s land to destabilize the region, while launching terrorist attacks against American assets worldwide.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The tragedy of 9/11 resulted directly from a failure on the part of regional and extra-regional policymakers to appreciate the interconnected, interlinked, and interdependent nature of the world, in which we lived then and live now. But thanks to the collective response of the international community to the 9/11 tragedy 13 years ago, the Afghan people have made notable progress in the political, military, economic, and social development and reconstruction of our country.
The impact on the Afghan society of our 13-year achievements has been transformational. Never before in our history have there been as many schools, universities, clinics, hospitals, telephones, banks, TV and radio channels, newspapers, shopping centers and sports facilities across Afghanistan as there are today. More girls and boys go to school in urban and rural Afghanistan today than any time in the past. And an increasing number of Afghan women have been empowered to serve in our Government and Parliament, while playing a leading role in our vibrant civil society where they further different societal causes, including the rights of women and children.
What’s more, we have the freest press in the whole region, while our sports teams in football, cricket, and martial arts have performed impressively in the regional and international games and tournaments. In fact, we hold the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship, while our national cricket team has made it to the ICC Cricket World Cup, playing next March in Australia.
At the same, our civilian and military state institutions have continued to gain capacity, despite the existence of many parallel structures (e.g. UN agencies, “NGOs for profit,” contractors, sub-contractors, etc.) that constantly compete with the Afghan state for international aid resources. In June 2013, our army and police took over from NATO-ISAF the responsibility to provide security, law and order across Afghanistan. They’ve done a superbly impressive job in responding to the ongoing complex suicide terrorist attacks by the Taliban, who continue to operate out of safe sanctuaries in Pakistan.
More recently, our forces provided security for the two rounds of presidential elections across Afghanistan. The protection, which our battle-hardened forces provided, allowed more than seven million Afghans to defy many terrorist threats before and during the election days to turn out in large numbers to vote. Indeed, the much more civilized, issue-based campaigns of the eight presidential candidates (later and now Two) and the high voter turnout demonstrated the maturity of our young democracy. This has restored the confidence and optimism of our people for a secure future, in continued partnership with the international cooperation.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
These and many other achievements of Afghanistan remain very much a work in progress and thus in need of long-term regional and international support. Indeed, our experience as a least developed, land-locked country is no different from those of the “bottom billion” countries, which continue struggling to improve their socio-economic indicators in order to meet their national development benchmarks, as well as the Millennium Development Goals, while preparing for a Post-2015 Development Agenda.
In one major respect, however, our strenuous efforts to stabilize, rebuild and develop Afghanistan is constantly challenged and threatened by the forces of terrorism and radicalism that find safe havens, financing, light and heavy weapon supplies, as well as intelligence and strategic guidance outside of Afghanistan. In other words, it is the external state sponsorship of terrorism in Afghanistan that prevents stability from taking root in our otherwise peaceful country. In today’s international system, only pariah states seek their security in the insecurity of others. In this regard, in their recent Sixth Summit in Brazil, the BRICS leaders correctly “emphasized the unique importance of indivisible nature of security and that no State should strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others.”
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Government and people of Afghanistan welcome the recent statement of BRICS, which includes three of our key neighbors, in support of long-term stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan. India, China, and Russia themselves have been targets of the same terrorism that continues destabilizing Afghanistan. At the same time, they understand that without a stable Afghanistan, which links South Asia with Central Asia, there could be no meaningful regional economic cooperation, facilitating cross-border trade and investment, unimpeded and easy transit of goods, and secure energy supply via trans-Afghan pipelines to meet the increasing energy needs of our region.
Therefore, we not only welcome the bilateral and trilateral dialogues of the three countries on the post-2014 stabilization of Afghanistan but we also encourage them to work with each other and Afghanistan to shrink the space for any regional peace spoilers—be them states or their proxies—to operate freely. We should collectively isolate and punish any state that, in the words of the BRICS leaders, strengthens its “security at the expense of the security of others.”
Ladies and Gentlemen,
India and the United States are two of our natural strategic partners, with both of which Afghanistan has signed strategic partnership agreements. We welcome the recent statement by the two countries, following their Fifth Strategic Dialogue, in support of Afghanistan, as they reaffirmed their support for a “unified, independent, and sovereign Afghanistan.” They too reaffirmed “their commitments to eliminating terrorist safe havens and infrastructure, and disrupting terrorist networks” in the region.
We are also heartened by the two countries’ commitment to building and strengthening Afghan state institutions, especially if the United States provides long-term, cost-effective financing for young Afghans to pursue technical degrees in India. Moreover, I wish to note the importance of a Trilateral Strategic Partnership Dialogue among our three countries, which remains underutilized. We’ve encouraged the Obama Administration to participate more actively in this Dialogue, in accordance with America’s common objectives enshrined in its separate strategic partnership agreements with Afghanistan and India.
By the same token, the Government and people of Afghanistan are grateful to China for hosting the Fourth Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference, following the inauguration of our new president. In November 2011, the fourteen countries of Heart of Asia met to discuss the Istanbul Process on “Regional Security and Cooperation for a Secure and Stable Afghanistan.” The regional consensus that emerged in the Istanbul Process reaffirmed for implementation the commitments of our six neighbors in the 2002 Kabul Declaration of Good Neighborly Relations to non-interference in the Afghan affairs.
In this regard, HE President Karzai recently welcomed China’s New Asian Security Concept, which HE President Xi Jinping presented in the Fourth Summit of the Conference on Interaction & Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), emphasizing the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence that also underpin China’s vision of creating a New Silk Road Economic Belt that would spread peace and prosperity from Western Pacific to the Baltic Sea.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am delighted to point out the consensus in the region on the need for the NATO-ISAF to stay the course in Afghanistan until we firmly stand on our own. We thank the Foreign Ministers of 28 NATO member states and 22 ISAF member states who met this past June in Brussels where they unanimously expressed their continued assistance for the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
The two Candidates are firmly committed to the signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States and a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with NATO, which should facilitate the continued presence of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Indeed, any residual force should be backed with a long-term civilian aid program, in line with the Tokyo Conference objectives to further consolidate our security, governance, and development achievements since the fall of the Taliban.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The people and Government of Afghanistan congratulate the people of India on their recent historic, democratic election of a new Government under the premiership of HE Narendra Modi. We are thankful to the Prime Minister for highlighting his firm commitment to revitalization of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) right at beginning of his tenure, by inviting the leaders of all SAARC countries to attend his inauguration. And we welcome the immediate follow-up by HE President Pranab Mukherjee to point out, in his address to the Joint Sessions of the Indian Parliament, his Government’s commitment to working “together with South Asian leaders to revitalize SAARC as an effective instrument for regional cooperation and as a united voice on global issues.”
Regardless of who becomes Afghanistan’s next President, regional economic cooperation will remain a major pillar of our foreign policy. We have actively participated in all SAARC Summits and technical meetings, while bilaterally encouraging our SAARC neighbors to overcome their differences so that we can collectively benefit from SAARC’s comprehensive agenda of ensuring prosperity across the region.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Indo-Afghan bilateral relations rest on a solid foundation of shared history, culture, and strategic partnership. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the Government and people of India have consistently supported the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan. The country has disbursed $2 billion worth of effective assistance to Afghanistan. This generous aid package—encompassing humanitarian, infrastructure, economic, and capacity building projects—has reached large parts of our country and improved the lives of many Afghans.
With the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan by the end of this year, additional opportunities for security and defense cooperation between Afghanistan and India will open up, in line with the core objectives of the Afghanistan-India Strategic Partnership Agreement. This cooperation should foremost address our need for long-term military training and equipment assistance, while continuing to strengthen our state institutions that remain devoid of adequate capacity and resources to deliver basic services to people in the post 2014 period.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
May I conclude by stating that the people and Government of Afghanistan desire nothing but peace, harmony, and co-existence at home and throughout the “Heart of Asia” region. In the few critical years following the inauguration of our new President and the end of transition this year, our Government and people look forward to working with all regional and international stakeholders to institutionalize peace and democracy in Afghanistan. Succeeding in this endeavor is going to benefit us all, as I discussed in detail. But failing Afghanistan again will push us back to what we all bitterly experienced in the 1990s, a dark and ugly era that none of us will ever wish to revisit given our common pursuit of peace, security and prosperity for all in an interdependent, shrinking world.
Thank you.
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