Intra-Afghan talk / India attends first-ever direct peace talks between Taliban and Afghanistan

New Delhi: India attended the start of the intra-Afghan talks in Doha on Saturday, where a senior official participated in-person and External Affairs minister S Jaishankar joined-in virtually.

During the address, Jaishankar said that the peace process must be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled. “Addressed the conference on Afghan peace negotiations at Doha today. Conveyed that the peace process must be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled, respect national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan, promote human rights and democracy, ensure interest of minorities, women and the vulnerable, effectively address violence across the country,” Jaishankar tweeted.

“The friendship of our peoples is a testimony to our history with Afghanistan. No part of Afghanistan is untouched by our 400-plus development projects. Confident that this civilizational relationship will continue to grow,” he added.

Joint Secretary (Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran) in Ministry of External Affairs, J P Singh, in Doha witnessed the ceremony. Singh, who has served in Afghanistan as First Secretary (political) and Pakistan as Deputy High Commissioner, is the government’s point person on India’s ties with three countries — Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

India had attended the signing of the US-Taliban pact on February 29. At that point, Indian ambassador to Qatar P Kumaran had witnessed the event.

But this time, a top Indian official has flown down to Doha and the Foreign minister is joining in virtually. This is a significant move, given India’s reticence in acknowledging power-sharing arrangements in Kabul.

Earlier this week, Jaishankar had visited Iran and had discussed the situation in Afghanistan. Two days after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met his counterpart in Iran, the External Affairs Minister had on Tuesday flown to Tehran and met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and discussed the Chabahar port project and the situation in Afghanistan.

Jaishankar, who was on his way to Moscow for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Foreign Ministers’ meeting on Monday, made a “technical halt” for refueling the special aircraft.

Two back-to-back high-level ministerial visits from India to Iran, sources said, signals Delhi’s commitment to ties with Tehran at a difficult time like this. But, the Afghanistan situation is a common and shared interest for both countries.

After the Afghan government released the last batch of six Taliban prisoners on Thursday, Kabul and the Taliban had announced that the long-awaited “intra-Afghan” talks would begin on September 12 in Doha, Qatar.