Karzai negotiates diplomatic minefield


	March 2, 2002	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Karzai negotiates diplomatic minefield
By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - India-Afghanistan relations, on the upswing since the collapse of the Taliban in November last year, have taken another leap forward after the two-day visit this week of Hamid Karzai, leader of Afghanistan's interim administration, to India.

Adding to the sizable economic, humanitarian and other assistance it has already extended to the interim administration, New Delhi has now announced a grant of US$10 million for Afghanistan's immediate utilization. India has also promised to assist Kabul in the fields of education, health, agriculture and information technology.

The two countries are said to have discussed Indian help in rebuilding the Afghan police and army. India is already training about 20 diplomats and providing input in organizing its internal security apparatus.

Interim Prime Minister Karzai and his 20-member delegation to India were accorded a red-carpet welcome to New Delhi, signaling the high priority India accords to its engagement with the interim administration. India had backed the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance (NA) in its fight against the Taliban. That close relationship with the NA continues to date. With the NA acquiring key portfolios in the interim administration, New Delhi's influence has grown dramatically in post-Taliban Afghanistan.

But while New Delhi's influence with the Tajik component of the interim administration is significant, that over the Pashtuns is limited.

"India is keen to revive its traditional close ties with the Pashtuns" that were ruptured during the Taliban years, an official in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs told Asia Times Online. Karzai's visit, he said, has provided India with an opportunity to widen its interaction and influence in Afghanistan.

While many of the ministers from the NA chose to make New Delhi their first official destination after the interim administration assumed charge just a few months ago, Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun who received his graduate degree from an Indian university, visited India's bitter rival Pakistan before going to Delhi.

Karzai is not thought to be as favorably disposed towards India as is the NA triumvirate - Interior Minister Younis Qanooni, Defense Minister Fahim Khan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah - in the interim administration.

There has been some speculation in the international media that Karzai's overtures to Pakistan were motivated to offset the NA's influence in the interim administration.

However, Indian analysts are attributing Karzai's reaching out to Pakistan as a bid to pre-empt Islamabad's potential for creating trouble in Afghanistan. "With most of the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders escaping to Pakistan and the continuing engagement of the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] with these elements, Pakistan is in a position to stir up considerable trouble for the interim administration, especially if it is seen to be comfortable working with India," the external affairs official said.

Karzai's visit to Pakistan was "to ensure that General Pervez Musharraf would keep the pro-Taliban elements in his government under control", he said, adding that if this was indeed Karzai's motive in engaging with Musharraf, "it is to India's benefit. New Delhi has no problem with that."

India's economic and political diplomacy in Afghanistan is driven by a determination to not only keep Pakistan's influence in that country to a minimum but also to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a springboard for terrorism directed against India again. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan provided arms and training to terrorists operating in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

A report by Shishir Gupta in the Indian weekly magazine India Today says that United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan facilitated Karzai's visit to Pakistan as the UN believes that Pakistan's support is crucial for Afghanistan's stability. "Annan, whose relations with India have been troubled is, it seems, advocating that Kabul should maintain parity in its diplomatic ties with India and Pakistan," Gupta argues.

But if Karzai's balancing act between India and Pakistan seems a tough one, he is having to negotiate the even more explosive Iran-United States relationship.

Karzai's visit to Iran early this week was perhaps the most complicated of all the countries he has engaged with since he took office in December. Karzai needs better relations with Iran, an influential neighbor. At the same time, he cannot jeopardize the interim administration's ties to the US.

Like India, Iran was supporting forces fighting the Taliban. However, since the creation of the interim administration, Tehran is said to be unhappy with its composition because Shi'ites and sections it has backed are not adequately represented in the power-sharing arrangement.

The US has in fact accused Iran of providing logistical support to Herat Governor Ismail Khan to destabilize the interim administration from his western Afghan stronghold. Washington has also accused Tehran of lax patrolling and turning a blind eye to the exodus of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from Afghanistan into Iran.

The increasing presence of its arch-enemy - the US - in the neighborhood has triggered alarm bells in Iran. Conservative sections in the ruling establishment perceive Karzai as a US puppet. US President George W Bush's verbal attack on Iran, including it in the "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea, has not helped Karzai's cause in Iran.

In fact, it does seem that the renewed US attack on Iran was timed to coincide with Karzai's visit to Iran, raising the possibility that Washington is not keen that Kabul warm up to Tehran.

As Karzai was starting his visit to Iran, the US special envoy in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, repeated American allegations that Tehran had helped to arm various groups inside Afghanistan and to allow the escape of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

"We do not want Iran to allow al-Qaeda types to cross from Afghanistan into Iran, or the Taliban people to be supported or be allowed to cross into Iran, or for Iran to send [paramilitary Islamic] al-Quds forces here or to supply [Iranian paramilitary] Sepah-i-Mohammad forces in here or to assist some warlord or local leader," Khalilzad said.

Yet Karzai's visit to Iran went off well, with Iranian leaders pledging to take steps to cut off assistance to warlords inside Afghanistan.

Iran had already pledged more than $500 million in aid for Afghanistan over the next five years at the donors' conference in Tokyo in late January. In Tehran, Karzai was able to secure the support of not only Iran's reformist President Mohammed Khatami but also a public endorsement of the interim administration from its conservative, supreme spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Besides, Karzai was successful in getting the Iranians to crack down on Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar, once close to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, shifted his base to Iran in recent years. He is said to have been trying to organize a coalition of Afghan forces to oppose the interim administration.

According to the Iranian IRNA news agency, Hekmatyar, who has been under virtual house arrest since early this year, was expelled from Iran on Tuesday.

Iran, too, gained from Karzai's visit. In Tehran, Karzai appeared to make a point of addressing US allegations. In his speech to the Iranian parliament, Karzai praised Iran's efforts in Afghanistan.

"Regarding the reconstruction and stability of Afghanistan, Iran has played a very important and effective role and assisted us a lot to save Afghanistan," Karzai said. "We have told America that Iran has been helpful and that Iran is our friend and brother country and we ask all the other countries to help us and to be just like Iran who has helped us to save Afghanistan."

Iranian radio quoted Karzai as saying that, "with regard to the statements made by American newspapers or American officials, we have said before that Iran is a friend of Afghanistan and saved Afghanistan from great problems".

Karzai's task at home of keeping rival tribal and ethnic factions from flying at each other's throats is intimidating. But no less daunting is his task abroad of walking a tightrope between his country's neighbors, regional and big powers, all of whom have been and will continue to play an influential role in Afghanistan.

((c)2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact ads@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)