Transit access to the landlocked state of Afghanistan has been a point of geostrategic debate for long. Especially, enabling it to trade with India via Pakistan’s territory becomes an integral part of power politics. This is where the pivot lies, too. The issue surfaced again as Prime Minister Imran Khan met a high-powered Afghan delegation under Interim Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on a three-day visit to Islamabad. The request to allow Kabul to receive wheat supply from Delhi via Pakistan found a listening ear, and the prime minister promised to look at its modalities in all generosity. This is proactive diplomacy and shuns politics of repulsion. It also underlines the farsighted approach and consciousness of Islamabad to cultivate its geo-economics nexus in all sincerity in the larger regional interest.
The Afghan emissaries got a debriefing too in person from the prime minister, and the dependability of the southwest Asian country vis-a-vis expectations of the international community was reiterated. The Afghan settlement question was also buoyed with the meeting of troika representatives and the congeniality witnessed is an achievement of sorts. Envoys from China, the US and Russia the other day deliberated over it, too. Thus, with the opening up of Afghanistan and patronage of major powers one hopes the realisation will also dawn on India to mend fences with Pakistan, and respond in a realistic manner by undoing irritation in its bilateralism.
The onus, nonetheless, is on India to bury the hatchet with Pakistan and admit the reality that geo-politics has taken a turn for betterment in the economic context. This is why its own future course of relations with the Central Asian states, as well as Afghanistan, will always be dependent on Pakistan and its largesse. The Belt and Road initiative of Beijing is a case in point. While Afghanistan is at the verge of humanitarian disaster, as it struggles to feed 40 million mouths, the entire region should be compassionate enough to ward off another disaster in the making. Transit accessibility to India to reach out to Afghanistan and vice versa will always have a political connotation. Let’s address the irritants once and for all.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2021.
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