Taliban says it can 'reconcile' with India

[Avatar]

If Afghans think that Taliban are the best for their own interests and if Afghans want to live under Taliban rule, then we will recognize Taliban rule.

India is helping in rebuilding a nation and that has no relevance with the rulers.

On a deeper note, Mrs Jana, would you personally like to live under Taliban rule ? Had you been, you would not have been here and you definitely would have never been able to read TOI

Besides, nowhere in this article is it stated that Taliban "loves" India. They only say that they are neutral towards Indian presence for obvious reasons.

 

[IMADreamer]

Claiming that it was not in "direct conflict" with India, Taliban has said there was a possibility of reconciliation even as it justified the February 26 Kabul attack on Indians as a "legitimate" action.

In a self-contradicting interview, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed his organisation did not want India out of Afghanistan but attacked the country for supporting the Hamid Karzai government and western forces.

"If the Taliban returns to power, we would like to maintain normal relations with countries including India. It’s possible for the Taliban and India to reconcile with each other," Mujahid told Outlook magazine.

He said "India’s role is different from those countries that sent troops to occupy Afghanistan."

At the same time, he added that, "India isn’t neutral in the Afghan conflict as it is supporting the military presence of US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and working for the strengthening of the Hamid Karzai government."

Also, he said, "India has never condemned the civilian casualties caused by the occupying forces", a reference to US-led troops in Afghanistan.

Asked about the February 26 attack in which Indians, housed in two hotels in Kabul, were targeted, the spokesman said Taliban was responsible for it.

He said it was carried out by "Taliban fighters after we got intelligence information that RAW agents were holding a meeting there."

The February 26 attack targeted Indians engaged in developmental projects like medical and education programmes, killing seven of them.

Claiming that India was supporting the Afghan government and the western forces, Mujahid said the country is, "therefore, a legitimate target for us."

Asked if Taliban wanted India out of Afghanistan, he said, "We are not saying that India should be out of Afghanistan. Nor can India be completely expelled from Afghanistan."

The Taliban spokesman noted that India and Afghanistan have had historic ties and said "The Taliban aren’t in any direct conflict with India. India troops aren’t part of NATO forces, they haven’t occupied Afghanistan."

He claimed that Taliban "favour neither India not Pakistan" but hastened to add that it cannot "ignore Pakistan as it is a neighbouring Islamic country" and was on good terms with them when they were in power.

"India, on the other hand, backed anti-Taliban forces of the Northern Alliance (NA) and refused to do business with our government... Our complaint is India backed the NA (Northern Alliance), and is now supporting the Karzai government," Mujahid said.

He was also critical when asked about Indian projects and whether those were beneficial for Afghan people.

Claiming that India was doing all this to promote its interest in Afghanistan, he said, "If India were so fond of the Afghan people, why did it not undertake development projects under Taliban rule?"


news.outlookindia.com | No Direct Conflict With India, Can Reconcile: Taliban

 

[RadyLeo]

very very funny article indeed. I wonder when did India had a "normal" relations with Taliban??? Remember IC814???

Hello Mr.Mujahid... please discard that thing you are smoking.. it ain't good for you..

On a serious note feel sorry for the millions of Afghans. Sooner or later the likes of Zabihullah Mujahid will be taking over the Afghanistan and it will be like back to pre-9/11.

 

[Spring Onion]

Already posted yara.

And you put a thumb up with the post so do you support Taliban now ??

 

[Arik]

here is speaks my mind. As i had been asking the same thing from Indian members here that if India was so much concerned for Afghan development then why India did not invest and helped Afghan under Taliban rule.

no civilized government will deal with the taliban.India is a democracy where peoples rights r respected unlike the taliban rule where people have to live as if they r in the 10th century.The taliban r a bunch of thugs and they have to be eliminated at any cost.

 

[Avatar]

Already posted yara.

And you put a thumb up with the post so do you support Taliban now ??

No, we do not support Taliban nor we ever will even if they start writing us love letters.

 

[Mahakaya]

No, we do not support Taliban nor we ever will even if they start writing us love letters.

No Man - We should not support Taliban but then again its a sound ****** policy to talk to Taliban since even the Americans are doing so - We have had some historic relations with the Afghans and I mean I am talking about centuries old relations.

We should definitely look after our interests and see to it that if any Taliban government comes into Afghanistan - we be a party to the conference that acknowledges it!

IT IS IMPORTANT FROM A GEOPOLITICAL SCENARIO GUYS!

 

[IMADreamer]

Already posted yara.

And you put a thumb up with the post so do you support Taliban now ??

no we are not supporting taliban now .
thump was just up to show that now we can deal with both the parties in afganistaan iff we want.
if pakistan is thinking they can play double game with world and nobody can do anything then it's wrong now.
it seems that we got few more cards now and we can also defeat pakistaan in their game too.
now its upto GOI how they want to play it's card but definatly if it is true then it will give us more levarage to deal with USA/Pakistaan with respect to afganistaan

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

Indian Visit to Saudi Arab is paying off

 

[IMADreamer]

there has been no offcial statement by Indians yet on this but they have a stance that they wont reconcile with Taliban & some weeks ago we also saw this news

http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/49524-india-may-talk-isi-taliban.html

will be interesting what Indian response seeing that they are 'out of loop in Afgh'

The main problem is till now every body is in dielima to whome they should support. every thing is changing very fast and no body knows what will be the future.
So they are not sure that what should be their stretegy in afganistaan.
so everybody is trying to gain maximum cards so that they can remain in game(instead of just to depend on their traditional trump cards now they are also cocentrating on other various small cards too)

USA dilema:

whether she should talk with talibaan or not ??
she will ever win war in afganistaan or not??
which country support she need most india/pakistaan??

Pakistaan dilema:

whether she should still give support to talibaan or not??
is it safe to invest everything on one party(taliban) to handle indian in afganistaan?
or she should talk with second party too??

India dilema:


if USA will leave afganistaan and talibaan capture afganistaan then what will happen??

is it safe to invest everything on one party(karzayi goverment ) to handle pakistaan in afganistaan?

or she should talk with second party too??


talibaan/current afganistaan goverment dielima:

whether they should talk with second party too instead of just to depend on their traditinal supporter??

 

[graphican]

No, we do not support Taliban nor we ever will even if they start writing us love letters.

India is out of options now. Whether India likes or not, Taliban is reality and they control more than 80% of Afghan territory. So if you are not going to support them, you cannot sustain your presence in 80% of the Afghan territory and the best thing about remaining 20% land is its far far away from the borders of Pakistan It will suit Pakistan even more if India stays away from Taliban because that attitude will ensure India does not consolidate even in the 20% of the remaining territory

BUT having said that, Taliban are Muslims and India is the third largest Muslim population containing country after Pakistan and Indonesia. So why don't you use your Muslim population as the reason to reconcile with them?

 

[RAHUL INDIAN]

India is out of options now. Whether India likes or not, Taliban is reality and they control more than 80% of Afghan territory. So if you are not going to support them, you cannot sustain your presence in 80% of the Afghan territory and the best thing about remaining 20% land is its far far away from the borders of Pakistan It will suit Pakistan even more if India stays away from Taliban because that attitude will ensure India does not consolidate even in the 20% of the remaining territory

BUT having said that, Taliban are Muslims and India is the third largest Muslim population containing country after Pakistan and Indonesia. So why don't you use your Muslim population as the reason to reconcile with them?

Taliban are terorists....i dunno support any deal with them....its better either they leave Afghanistan or they all get killed in wot....

 

[Avatar]

India is out of options now. Whether India likes or not, Taliban is reality and they control more than 80% of Afghan territory. So if you are not going to support them, you cannot sustain your presence in 80% of the Afghan territory and the best thing about remaining 20% land is its far far away from the borders of Pakistan It will suit Pakistan even more if India stays away from Taliban because that attitude will ensure India does not consolidate even in the 20% of the remaining territory

BUT having said that, Taliban are Muslims and India is the third largest Muslim population containing country after Pakistan and Indonesia. So why don't you use your Muslim population as the reason to reconcile with them?

You know what, we can be selfish and we can look out for our own interests ..we can support the Taliban and help them setup Afghanistan. We will support them which should lead them to support us. Strategically this is a good choice for us.

However, India is more than that. Only the Afghans decide who they want to be governed by and we support Afghans regardless of our own benefits.

Taliban is a menace, they buy kids from orphanages and rape them..They kill innocent people for amusement.. What kind of a nation supports them? Not India, that's for sure.. and I don't think any sane Indian muslim supports Taliban either.

I guess my single opinion does not influence the nation's decision makers. We don't need Taliban to help us with Pakistan. Our soldiers fight real wars in the battlefield.

 

[Evil Flare]

Taliban are terorists....i dunno support any deal with them....its better either they leave Afghanistan or they all get killed in wot....

Leave Afghanistan ???

 

[EjazR]

Well India was helping out and had its diplomatic missions till 1994 in Kabul. It provided help to many Afghans trying to escape the turmoil including Najibullah's family. After the fall of his government and his brutal killings at the hand of the Taliban, India shut down its missions. So did the UN except for the bare minimum staff. Moreover, the Taliban was heavily under the influence of Pakistani intelligence and army. Khost province and HuJI camps were militants were trained and sent to Kashmir. Hijackers of the Indian jetliners were landing planes in Afghanistan and demanding release of known terrorists (1998). It was the Taliban who weren't capable to stop the area under their control from being a launchpad for terrorism in other countries where India was one of them. Besides, they were hardly following the tenets of Islam and were increasingly hijacked with Al Qaeda's interpretations even though the vast majority of the Afghan public disliked them.


Now coming back to the confusion between reconciliation and re-integration. The GoI realizes that many of the Taliban cadre consists of those who are not motivated for ideological (i.e. political Islam) reasons but just for concerns regarding security livelihood or maybe just to get rid of foreign occupation). this is the point which Rao articulated back in October 2009 but the media seems to be confused about including the Indian media which keeps mixing up the two. This was in response to Karzai's on policy of re-integrating the Taliban.
Here is an example of the wrong heading used by business standard for example.
India supports reconciliation with Taliban


Now what does that mean?

Nirupama Rao stated that, “the existing process under (Afghanistan’s) National Committee for Peace for reintegrating individuals with the national mainstream must be both enlarged and accelerated. We support the Afghan government’s determination to integrate those willing to abjure violence and live and work within the parameters of the Afghan constitution…”

Basically, give your policy of imposing "sharia" at the force of the gun. Accept the current Afghan constitution, gather the support of the Afghan people in a democratic manner and yes, even though you were a Taliban member before, there would be no problems in re-integrating you in the new Afghan government setup. This is what the Karzai govt., and this inevitably is supported by GoI as well. In other words, the Talib will in affect stop being a Talib in this manner. The Afghan Taliban are after all Afghans and they have to be re-integrated into the society at the end of the day. But there should be no reconciliation with the Taliban ideology.


Now reconciliation would mean that the Taliban as an entity is given a power sharing arrangement without renouncing this idea of imposing rules and having no democratic support for their rule. Maybe by giving them autonomous controls over the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan. This would be bad for Afghanistan--particularly the people living int hose provinces, bad for India if the 1990s was anything to go by regarding the Taliban rule and its affect on India and bad for Pakistan as well as it would give a boost to TTP.


As can be seen from the interview, the spokesman wants the second option which I think neither the Indians nor the Afghan govt. wants. But this is an indication of the vast amount of good will India has even among the Pashtuns because after all the Taliban also have to take into account public opinion and India's humanitarian projects is forcing them to take a nuanced approach about India's presence in Afghanistan contrary to what Taliban or their affiliates in Pakistan would want.