‘From Pak Standpoint, Af Situation is About India’

P. Stobdan, author of “The Afghan Conflict and India” says the entire Afghan situation from the standpoint of Pakistan is about India. “This is a very serious development from an Indian strategic security point of view,” he says. He thinks that the Indian thinking about Afghanistan is a little bit misplaced, because of India’s Pakistan centric Afghan policy. Asked why India is not supporting the Northern Alliance this time as it traditionally supported the Northern Alliance during the 1990s, he says it is because of the logistics and “as we are unaware about the realignment of forces there”. He says that whether the Taliban wants to engage with India is heavily dependent on Pakistan. “Taliban promised in 1996 the International community that Taliban will not shelter the Al-Qaeda but then they justified their existence in Afghanistan in the name of Islam and Afghan tradition. Taliban is not a monolith. It has lot of factions the moderates, the hardliners etc. If one will agree, the others will not,” he says. Read More…