US State Department keen on Indian say in Afghan peace process

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, June 16

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had a surprise meeting with US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad on Tuesday in Qatar, the epicenter of peace talks with the Taliban.

Jaishankar also met his Jordanian and Palestinian counterparts Ayman Safadi and Riyad al-Maliki at Doha airport on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, he met Qatar’s foreign and defence ministers and discussed bilateral cooperation with them and exchanged views on global and regional issues.

Jaishankar’s Qatar visit was his second visit to a Gulf nation in a week and reflects multiple vectors that South Block is working on including the well being of the huge Indian expatriate population in these countries at a time of shrinking job opportunities.

India is also a major stakeholder in the peace and stability of Afghanistan and has been supporting a national peace and reconciliation process.

“Met with Zalmay Khalilzad in Doha. Continued our exchange of perspectives on Afghanistan and the region,” tweeted Jaishankar tweeted. The External Affairs Ministry had not previously announced the meeting.

The US has already indicated India’s indispensability in the peace process. In March, the US had said it would take several steps—the first of which would be to ask the UN to convene a meeting of foreign ministers from India, Pakistan, China, Iran, Russia and US to discuss a unified approach to Afghanistan.

India’s position was articulated by Jaishankar at the 9th Heart of Asia Ministerial Conference in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, where he expressed grave concern over violence and bloodshed in Afghanistan and called for genuine double peace. Jaishankar also asked the negotiating parties to engage in good faith, with a serious commitment towards reaching a political solution.

The US and the Taliban had signed an agreement in Doha last year on withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan that would end Washington’s two-decade-long occupation of Afghanistan.

Last November, Jaishankar and Khalilzad had held talks here on this issue which was preceded by an Indian delegation attending the inaugural ceremony of the intra-Afghan negotiations in Doha.

Jaishankar had a brief stopover in Doha on June 9 during which he met Qatar’s NSA and thanked him for the support and solidarity during India’s second wave.