Afghanistan Times
Related Articles
AT Monitoring Desk-KABUL: The Foreign Ministers of India, China and Russia on Monday held a trilateral meeting in New Delhi where the three counterparts emphasized on Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process to establish peace and stability in Afghanistan, slamming the Taliban insurgents for undermining peace in the region and around the world.
Addressing the conference, the India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj stressed on mutual cooperation for peace process, fight against terrorism, and drug trafficking and highlighted importance of regional interaction in Afghanistan to achieve joint goals.
“We reiterate our support to the government and people of Afghanistan in their efforts to achieve an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned national peace and reconciliation and build a peaceful, secure, united, sovereign, democratic, stable, prosperous and pluralistic state,” a joint statement by the three foreign affairs ministers said.
According to the statement, the three big Asian countries also talked about durable peace and stability in Afghanistan to be established through capable and effective Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. They also shared their concerns on drug trafficking that generate revenue for Taliban and financially support terrorism.
“We emphasize the need for stepping up result-oriented international efforts aimed at countering the Afghan drug threat,” the statement added.
The Taliban militants have been directly undermining the international peace and security, Sushma Swaraj said.
“While discussing terrorism, I put across my view that a significant rise in acts of terrorism by the terrorist organizations like the Taliban, Daesh, Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba, directly undermine international peace and security and endangers ongoing efforts to strengthen the global economy ensuring sustainable growth and development. India strongly recommends a comprehensive policy for dealing with global terrorism, “Swaraj added.
Sushma Swaraj also shed light on global security, regional connectivity and the Middle East crises with her Chinese and Russian counterparts, Wang Yi and Sergei Lavrov.
Moreover, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov said: “We compared noted on the situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. On the Syrian settlement, we stand for swift launch of the national reconciliation process.”
“When it comes to regional issues, we shared our assessments on the situations in the Korean Peninsula. It is quite tense and we believe it is unacceptable to intensify the military tension and confrontation. It can be transferred from the propaganda stage to the military stage. We highlighted that there is no alternative to the political and diplomatic solution. As you know, there is a roadmap sponsored by Russian and China,” Lavrov added.
On his turn Wang Yi also said that in the meeting the three sides discussed Afghanistan, the Middle East and other international and regional issues.
“We will promote connectivity building of the Eurasian continent following the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, committing to a policy on infrastructure, trade, financial and people-t-people connectivity, to ensure that our connectivity initiative complement instead of contradicting each other, and supplement instead of conflict with each other,” Wang said.
“To foster regional integration, we have also had discussion on Afghanistan, the Middle East and other international hotspot regional issues and reached consensus on these issues,” Swaraj furthered.
The importance of multilateral region-led interactions on Afghanistan issues was also part of their meeting that consist of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Moscow format, the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process, the Kabul Process and the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan.
A Peaceful and stable Afghanistan is in the interests of all the regional countries and international community. Afghanistan wants to be a center of cooperation instead of confrontation between the regional and international players and rivals.
However, peace and stability in Afghanistan and in the region could not be achieved as long as terrorist outfits enjoy safe havens, training centers, fund raising sources and state support from the hostile neighborhood of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan being a front line state in war on terror has been rendering highest level of scarifies and our brave security forces, with less resources and weapons have been chasing insurgency in mountains and valleys across the country.
Time is ripe for the regional and international community to further strengthen the Afghan security forces and help us in strengthening internal unity and solidarity instead of creating rifts and divisions. Some weeks back, the Afghan National Security Adviser Haneef Atmar called on all those countries having relations with Taliban to use their relationship in a positive way and force Taliban to Afghan-led and Afghan-owned negotiation table to establish peace and share harmony.
