Pak asks UK to limit Indian influence in Afghanistan

indiatimes.com

With the UK trying to broker an agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan on Taliban reconciliation, Islamabad, it is learnt, has asked London to limit Indian activities in war-torn Afghanistan. It is not clear what the UK response has been, but diplomatic sources said Afghan and the British role in a possible Taliban reconciliation deal between Islamabad and Kabul would be high on the agenda, when British PM David Cameron meets Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for talks on Tuesday. Cameron is on a working visit to India. Sources said Pakistan had made this request to Cameron during last week's trilateral meeting with Hamid Karzai at Chequers, the British PM's country home. Cameron had hosted both leaders for the trilateral that is searching for a viable way to bring the Taliban into the mainstream in Afghanistan, get Pakistan to release Taliban leaders, who are in Pakistani custody. Pakistani media reported that after the Chequers meeting that Pakistani President Raja Pervaiz Ashraf asked the UK to give Islamabad the military hardware that they would leave behind after 2014. Pakistan's news daily, The News, reported this week that in response, Cameron was quoted as saying, "Your friends are our friends and your enemies are our enemies." The UK has apparently promised some equipment to Uzbekistan — it is using the Northern Distribution Network to transport its men and materiel out. India will also be holding its own trilateral meeting on Afghanistan on Tuesday. Senior officials from India, Afghanistan and the US will meet to coordinate activities in Afghanistan, an exercise that has assumed more importance, thanks to the impending drawdown of US troops from that country. The first meeting of the trilateral took place on the sidelines of the UNGA last September. It is also predicated on the continuing activities in Afghanistan by India and the US after 2014. In fact, the Afghan government has asked India to intensify its activities inside Afghanistan even after the US withdrawal. There is growing wariness within India about the apparent consonance of interests between UK and Pakistan. India believes that the UK may be helping Pakistan achieve its core interest — of facilitating a Taliban return in Afghanistan and a return to the strategic comfort of the 1990s. Pakistan is not likely to release the Taliban leaders without important concessions to their core interests. Pandering to these could end up seriously destabilizing Afghanistan as well as threatening Indian security interests. Indian officials said they did not seriously believe that the UK would want to undermine India: hence, New Delhi would seek greater clarity from the British leadership regarding their intentions. British officials insist India had been kept in the loop at every step of the way — from a phone call by the British foreign secretary after the trilateral meeting to regular official interaction between the foreign offices.