Taliban wants to engage India

By C. Raja Mohan

ISLAMABAD, FEB. 12. With less than a handful of Taliban Embassies around the world, there was no question of not visiting the most important of these in a leafy enclave of the Pakistani capital. There are tough but casual-looking men in pathan suits hanging around to safeguard the mission.

We are ushered in politely after informing the sentry about the appointment with the Taliban Ambassador, Mr. Abdul Salam Zaeef, who had readily agreed to meet the two reporters from The Hindu, despite the very short notice. It is a large house but furnished austerely.

We wait for Mr. Zaeef in a small conference room. Some of the maps on the wall are a bit outdated as they refer to the nation as the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Mr. Zaeef represents the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that has been recognised only by three countries - Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Afghanistan, impoverished by a brutal civil war for more than two decades, is now under international sanctions imposed by the United Nations for supporting international terrorism. But there is a mood of defiance here. Mr. Zaeef, the unassuming Ambassador of the Taliban, has sharp piercing eyes. At the end of a 40-minute conversation, his message to India is at once conciliatory and hard. ``Afghans can only be bought by friendship and not enmity,'' he warned. ``We can be very good friends or very strong enemies,'' Mr. Zaeef suggested.

Speaking through an interpreter, he made explicit the strong Taliban desire to engage India. Proposing ``normal relations'' with India and ``non-interference'' in each other's international affairs, Mr. Zaeef said ``this is the basic right of one neighbour over the other.''

Living in the same region, the envoy said, India and Afghanistan must have ``diplomatic relations and commercial ties.'' Indian delegations, Mr. Zaeef said, were welcome in Afghanistan ``to find the realities for themselves.''

``Never in history we have done anything wrong against India,'' Mr. Zaeef went on; but he argued, ``it is ironic to know that India is helping our opponents and running a propaganda campaign against us.'' Now the hard part of the message comes through.

``Any support to the forces of opposition in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,'' the envoy said, ``amounts to interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and prolongs the war... We do not meddle in the affairs of other countries, and we want the others to follow the same principle.

Questioned on the Taliban's backing to terrorist groups in Kashmir, he denied there was any such support. While dismissing what he called ``international propaganda against the Taliban,'' He argued that before this Government took charge, there were terrorist camps in Afghanistan. But they had been shut down now, he insisted.

Mr. Zaeef went on to explain the Taliban position on Kashmir. ``We do not want atrocities to be committed against Kashmiri people.'' But would he condemn all violence, including by the terrorist groups? ``We condemn any acts of violence by any party. We want to see the Kashmir issue resolved through peaceful dialogue.''

On the concerns about the Taliban's export of its extreme ideology, Mr. Zaeef said there were two elements to the issue. ``If someone wants to follow the example of the Taliban, we cannot stop them, but we do not want to export our ideology to any other nation.''

Throughout the interaction, the Afghan envoy sought to dispel the notion that the Taliban was acting as Pakistan's proxy. ``It is clear from our history that we are an independent people. We only follow the injunctions of Allah, our creator. We don't accept bondage to any other nation,'' he declared.

As an example of Afghan independence, he pointed to the recent refusal of Kabul to accept demands from Islamabad to hand over terrorists wanted in Pakistan. ``If there is any one who committed crime in Afghanistan, and there is evidence against him, we will try him in Afghanistan or extradite him.''

Arguing that there must be evidence against the individual accused of crime, Mr. Zaeef suggested that the rules were the same - whether it was the United States' desire to get hold of Osama bin Laden or Pakistan's request. Media reports here suggest that the Pakistan Interior Minister, Mr. Moinuddin Haider had to come back empty-handed after a meeting with Afghan authorities last week.

Mr. Zaeef emphasised that Afghanistan had good relations with Pakistan. But the relationship, he said, ``is never an obstacle to have good relations with anyone else.'' He suggested that the bad relations between India and Pakistan ``will not have an impact on Indo-Afghan ties.''

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