Pak petulant as Delhi, Moscow coordinate on Afghanistan

A sulking Pakistan will watch from the sidelines as India hosts the national security advisers (NSAs) of Rus- sia and the five Central Asian Republics in Delhi next week, to discuss the current situation in Afghanistan, the likely fallout for the region and the way forward. On Monday, Pakistan’s NSA Moeed Yusuf announced that he would not be travelling to New Delhi for the proposed meeting, remarking that “a spoiler cannot be allowed to play the role of a peacemaker.’’ He wants Taliban representation in any such meeting, a proposition that is unaccept- able to the main organisers of the conference in New Delhi - India and Russia.

Much to Islamabad’s chagrin, Russia, India and Iran are working in close coordination to make this first of its kind conference, to be held on November 10, an impor- tant forum for exchanging notes on the evolving security situation emerging from the Taliban taking over the reins of power in Kabul in August. This is perhaps the first time that all five Central Asian Republics—even Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan which don’t share borders with Afghanistan—will attend the meeting, reflecting the concerns that nations in this wider region feel over the precarious security situation, as a con- sequence of the Taliban seizing power.

There is no official word yet from China, but if Beijing wants to be taken seriously as a power to be reckoned with, it will not take its cue from Pakistan’s obduracy, and will send a high-level repre- sentative for the meeting and work with India and Russia for regional stability. According to sources, Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Secu- rity Council of Russia since 2008 and President Vladimir Putin’s point person on all matters of national security, is making his second trip to New Delhi in quick succession (he came in September 2021 for a one-on-one meeting with Indian NSA Ajit Doval), in what is seen as a clear signal to both China and the United States, that Russia remains a pre-eminent player in Afghanistan and in Central Asia.

The New Delhi meeting as- sumes importance in view of the concerns that countries in the region have about not only terror- ism emanating from Afghanistan, but the possibility of radical ele- ments securing safe havens there and narcotics trafficking getting a boost. The New Delhi conference will also mark India’s return to centre-stage in the emerging security situation in the region. Doval and Patrushev, who share a warm and close rapport, have chosen to involve the security czars of the Central Asian Republics since they are the most important part of the decision-making architecture.

There are expectations that NSAs from Uzbekistan, Tajiki- stan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, besides Iran and Russia, will join Doval and his team from India’s National Secu- rity Council Secretariat (NSCS) to discuss hard-core security is- sues in the region and identify the likely challenges that national security agencies will face in the near future.

(Nitin A. Gokhale heads StratNews Global and writes on defence, foreign policy and the movies)