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Pakistan invites India to work in Afghanistan
Smita Prakash

I am very happy to hear from the Pakistan Foreign Minister that both India and Pakistan should work together to rebuild Afghanistan — SM Krishna, External Affairs Minister

New Delhi, October 2
In a marked shift in policy, Pakistan has invited India to work alongside it in Afghanistan to rebuild the war-ravaged country. New Delhi has agreed. External Affairs Minister SM Krishna stated this in an interview on Thursday. Krishna said that he was pleasantly surprised by Pakistan's suggestion and has expressed India’s willingness to work together for rebuilding Afghanistan. “In Afghanistan we are doing something constructive, something appreciated by the people of Afghanistan. We have gone there to rebuild Afghanistan and I am very happy to hear from the Pakistan Foreign Minister that both India and Pakistan should work together to rebuild Afghanistan,” he said. “I am very surprised by the change in policy by Pakistan. India doesn’t have any other agenda rather than rebuilding the country,” he added. India has invested in infrastructure projects such as roads, hospitals, schools and the new parliament building in Kabul and the reconstruction aid totals $1.2 billion.

He said that India and Pakistan should work on an effective channel to deal with all issues concerning the two countries. India will continue to talk to Pakistan, but there’s no guarantee that the composite dialogue will be resumed. he said: “I do not know about back channel or front channel, all that I would be interested as Foreign Minister of this country is an effective channel between Pakistan and India. It could be the back channel, it could be the front channel. I think it doesn’t make any difference as long as it becomes effective.” He reiterated that Pakistan needs to make constructive efforts towards bringing the perpetrators of 26/11 to justice before any dialogue can be resumed. On ceasefire violations by Pakistan in recent months, the he said: “There have been some incidents of ceasefire violations in the last few months on the international border and these have been taken up with Pakistan as and when they have occurred.”

Tie-up with Iran on gas pipeline

India is interested in co-operation with Iran in the oil and gas sector issues. “Well India’s economy is growing very rapidly and India needs lots of energy. Issues of pricing, security and financial guarantees have been areas of discussions with respect to the pipeline,” said Krishna. “Bilateral cooperation will be further discussed in the joint working group likely to be convened this year and when that takes place we might find some answers,” he added. The Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, also known as the IPI pipeline or the Peace pipeline, is a proposed 2,775-km pipeline to deliver natural gas from Iran to Pakistan and India. India has not officially pulled out from pipeline talks after rounds of discussions, but quit talks following tensions with Pakistan. Indian officials have cited security and viability of the proposed pipeline as the main reason for parting from the project. — ANI