 relations capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today our topic is Afghanistan which is very much news. President Joe Biden has announced that the US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan on September 11th this year which is the 20th anniversary 9-11 attack which brought the United States into Afghanistan. It was on September 11th that terrorists used passenger aircraft as missiles to attack the World Trade Center. And when the Americans realized that the terrorists came from Afghanistan, Pakistan region, President Bush ordered a war against terror and the support that he sought in that war was from Pakistan, a country which has been sponsoring terror for a long time. And the war has continued for 20 years, President Trump and now President Biden are all trying to withdraw from Afghanistan but on the condition that terrorism will not continue because since the war was supposed to be on terrorism, United States could not withdraw without declaring that that war was successful. So several negotiations were held with the Taliban, with the present government in Afghanistan and various factions involving a special envoy of the United States and several dates were set. The last was set by President Trump himself who promised that the American troops will return to the United States before last Christmas. But before Christmas President Trump himself was out of office. President Biden continued those efforts and the same American negotiator continued meetings were held directly with the Taliban and others in different venues. But each agreement was violated by the Taliban and the United States did not get an opportunity to declare war on the. They wanted some kind of viable government to rename in Afghanistan so that when they leave there is no total chaos. But the existing government of Dhani and the Taliban leadership are not working with each other and there are conditions that both sides are putting forward and therefore this is not impossible. But come what may, President Biden has said that he will withdraw the troops in September, whether this will be a Vietnam for the United States where it had to withdraw forcefully or whether they will be able to establish a government and then leave is the million dollar question. This is yet to be seen. We have just a few months more. Looking back at the situation in Afghanistan, there is some parallelism between the Soviet experience in Afghanistan and the US experience in Afghanistan is a country which has never been conquered by anyone. They have fought several major powers but there had always been crimes that nobody was able to rule over Afghanistan. We know the story of Soviet Union in 1979. Soviet Union sent its forces into Afghanistan, allegedly invited by the president who was actually killed by the Soviet size when they entered. This was a major offense to the Western world in particular in the United States and the United States decided to oppose the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan by supporting various terrorist groups and tribal groups etc to get Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. India took a supportive position to the Soviet Union because we felt that the presence of the Soviet troops, though we are in principle against foreign troops operating in independent countries, we took a positive attitude and took a supportive position towards the Soviet Union. In fact, I was present at the meeting that the Soviet ambassador had middle of the night in December 1979 in cold Delhi when the Soviet ambassador told our foreign secretary Mr. Sathe that the Soviet troops were entering into Afghanistan and sought India's understanding but Mr. Sathe who had no briefing from the leadership to the middle of the night he told the Soviet ambassador that in principle we will not be in favor of the Soviet troops continuing in Afghanistan and that is India's policy. Mr. Charancing was still Prime Minister even though Mrs. Gandhi had been elected and not sworn in as yet. The next morning Mr. Charancing called the Soviet ambassador and repeated what the foreign secretary told him but Mr. Voronsov the ambassador told Mr. Charancing that he had a meeting with Mrs. Gandhi and she was understanding of the peculiar situation which prompts him to enter into Afghanistan. Well to cut a long story short, the consideration of Afghanistan in the Security Council was stopped by Soviet Vito when it went to the General Assembly and India abstained from the resolution. The only non-communist country which did not oppose the Soviet intervention. When this continued we gained some influence during that period but they came very clear that there was no point in Soviet Union continuing there because they couldn't really stabilize. And this was during Bershnev's time when Gorbachev came finally after other changes he decided to leave Afghanistan. Here again was the same problem as to how to leave without losing face. And then there was Nagibullah supported by Soviet Union and also by India gained to power and he continued. Soviet troops were partly withdrawn but he continued for several years till finally Soviet Union itself collapsed and the Soviet withdrawal ended and the country returned to Taliban. And that was a difficult period for India because the Taliban government was supportive of terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir. They were under control of Pakistan and therefore it was a very uncomfortable period for us. But then that 9-11 occurred and the United States troops came in and certain stability was brought about but the United States faced the same situation as the Soviet Union faced and the United States is now looking for a face saving formula like the United Soviet Union did in the past. So both the superpowers faced the health risk law. So now whether President Biden will be able to withdraw his troops from Afghanistan on the date fixed is still not known. Various discussions have been held, many agreements have been reached, different participants have participated but India was always on the fringes of these discussions because India was not considered an immediate neighbor to Afghanistan and was not involved in most of these discussions. But we were kept informed by the Afghanistan government and the Americans though we had no contact with Afghanistan. And one or two meetings, Indian non-officials were invited to participate. So we are fully familiar with the discussions going on and there are reasons for the foreign minister of Afghanistan visited India to bring India. The recent initiative taken by Mr. Joe Biden's Secretary of State proposed a new formula by which not only the neighboring countries but also some other major countries like India should participate in a final discussion in Istanbul, Turkey. But these are not made here. So in other words India's formal participation in these negotiations are not in place and informal meeting that was called by the Soviet Union in Russia did not invite us. So our participation in discussion is still informal although we were involved, we are involved in Afghanistan in many humanitarian activities. We have invested considerable sums on building a parliament, building some vital installations, hospitals, schools, etc. knowing fully well that we do not know how the final settlement will be and that is still at its time. But President Trump mockingly said that India was building only libraries that and he wanted India to be involved more militarily in Afghanistan. But we are afraid from doing so from obvious reasons. So but just as we felt that the continuation of Soviet groups created stability in Afghanistan, it was proved that the Soviet groups left Afghanistan completely in shambles and came under the administration of the Taliban and Pakistani directly. Again the same situation is likely to arise with the United States. So our concern or our preference is the same as it was with the Soviet Union that the continuation of the United States groups will be a stabilizing factor in our country. So it is a very difficult situation for us. It is more or less certain that a deal will be struck between the Taliban, the United States and the Persian government in Afghanistan and the Taliban based on the majority government may come into Kabul which would create immense difficulties. So we are looking at the developments in Afghanistan closely. We are seeing the parallels between the Soviet occupation and the US war in Afghanistan with certain trepidation because we do not know what the final settlement would be. The United States is determined to withdraw from Afghanistan in September and if the situation or agreement reached is not satisfactory to us, we may have another problem in our neighborhood. So considering that the negotiations are going on and the Taliban is participating in it and the Taliban visualizes that their participation that they will have an upper hand in the final settlement despite possible that at least for a time being the Taliban government with the participation of others in Afghanistan may perhaps be established. The major problem for India to operate in Afghanistan is of course Pakistan and just behind Pakistan is China. China has not expressed any particular view on this aspect but they are certainly favorable to the US withdrawal and the establishment of a new government. And so that India is concerned our preference is to have a Taliban, Afghan supported, Afghan led, independent, non-aligned government in Afghanistan. We have no other interests but it does not happen. Pakistan will further aggravate this by pushing terrorists to Jammu and Kashmir, that is our concern. But there we have another hope because though the government of India has not acknowledged it, obviously there are talks taking place between India and Pakistan with the support of reportedly by UAE. There have been several signs that these talks are taking place but India has never acknowledged that it is going on except that there was an agreement of a ceasefire there was a ceasefire but an agreement to continue with the ceasefire and not create violations between India and Pakistan sometime at all. That was the biggest sign or the best sign that we got that something was going on. So there is a hopeful sign there that if Pakistan agrees to not to aggravate the situation by pumping in more terrorists into Jammu and Kashmir, the settlement in Afghanistan and the US withdrawal will not be a big calamity for us. So we already have a problem on the China front. We have a problem on the Pakistan front and the disengagement has not taken place because of our preoccupation with COVID-19. The situation on the border is remaining calm but not resolved because there is no disengagement in several sectors. But that is kind of why I'm there because of the preoccupation of India and also China with the pandemic. Our immediate problem today is to take control over the pandemic rather than anything else. The government is being criticized by mishandling the pandemic crisis. This was not so during the first wave. During the first wave we were not only confident that we would win over COVID but also we were supporting various other countries with vaccines and medicines and other things thinking that our struggle was over. We have talked about this series on that particular issue. So it's a highly complex situation and any solution that will be brought about in Afghanistan with the participation of all Afghan parties. The main objection to that would be Taliban but at the same time the President is holding strong not to allow Taliban to take over the country completely. So just like the Americans who are interested in peace in Afghanistan and success of the 20-year adventure because they went there to end terrorism. And the fact that the terrorists came from Afghanistan and they were the same terrorists that we released in exchange for our plane in Kandahar. And that reality came to the recognition of the United States only in 2001. We have been saying for more than 20 years that real terrorism in the world comes from South Asia and Afghanistan and Pakistan in exchange. But the Americans never accepted that because they felt that this was just an excuse that India is giving in order to give Pakistan a name. And Pakistan was actually deployed by the United States to find the terrorists supported by Pakistan. And Donald Trump that really found out that Pakistan was cheating them and he stopped financial support to Pakistan for anti-terrorist activities. So for the Americans, it is a part of their, shall we say peace initiatives in the region because for them Pakistan is still required in order to manage Afghanistan. So the President Biden is a little more soft towards Pakistan than President Trump was. And therefore there is a little bit of nuance in the American position towards Biden's attitude towards Pakistan. So he does not consider Pakistan as an adversary. And they are probably also interested in seeing that in their engagement with China whether Pakistan will be of some use. As you know in 1972 when Nixon went to Beijing, the whole trip was facilitated by negotiations by Pakistan with China. So it's a very, very complex situation. But one is struck by the similarity between the two situations. The Soviet Union came into Afghanistan and had to struggle very much in order to get out of Afghanistan when the situation went back to chaos. And then the United States, because they realized that terrorism came from Afghanistan, they ordered a war on terror, which has not fully succeeded. Al-Qaeda has been more or less destroyed. But the other Taliban supported terrorist activities are still there. And they have been confronting the United States and also India, even India lost some lives into being a diplomat in Kabul as part of this operation. So it is quite clear that there's a strategist saying that the end game is coming in Afghanistan. But let us hope that end game will be favorable to peace, will be favorable to all the Afghans, not just the Taliban. And therefore a durable government can be established, which is friendly to our Afghanistan's neighbors and also not just an agent of the Pakistan government. So many things are yet to be cleared. So we look forward to September this year to see how the situation in Afghanistan will evolve. Afghanistan remains an important country for India. It's not to us, it's a peaceful, nice country, good relations with India with all the sections except the Taliban. And therefore a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan with a stable government, even if it includes some sections of Taliban, would be welcome. Thank you very much. See you next week.