Abdullah likely to visit India to discuss peace process

Afghanistan’s Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah will visit India later this week and will meet with the country’s top leadership to discuss intra-Afghan peace negotiations.

Abdullah will likely travel to Delhi on Tuesday and is expected to seek support for the intra-Afghan talks, India Today reported.

A delegation from the Indian government attended last month’s opening ceremony of the intra-Afghan negotiations in Doha and India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar delivered his remarks virtually during the ceremony.

India has its concerns regarding any settlement with the Taliban and the role Pakistan plays in the stability in Afghanistan, India today reported.

However, Delhi has pledged its continued support to Afghanistan and as Jaishankar stated, “our friendship with Afghanistan is strong and unshaken, we have always been good neighbours and will always be so. Our expectation is that the soil of Afghanistan should never be used for any anti-India activities”.

News of Abdullah’s planned visit to India comes just days after he wrapped up a three-day official trip to Pakistan, which was aimed at mending often fraught ties with Afghanistan’s eastern neighbor.

Abdullah, who has been a harsh critic of Pakistan in the past – and of previously accusing the country of supporting the Taliban – appeared however to have made serious inroads into forging better ties with Islamabad going forward.

He even thanked Pakistan for its efforts to get the Taliban to the peace talks tables in Doha.