JOIN USTerror won't stop aid for Afghans, reiterates India
After four Indian citizens were killed in a terror strike on a guesthouse in Kabul, the government on Thursday sent out a not-so-veiled message to Pakistan saying that terrorists and their sponsors should have by now realised that such attacks could not deter India from helping Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up Afghan President M Ashraf Ghani after the attack, which came shortly after Islamabad once again raised its pitch, accusing India of using Afghanistan to trigger unrest in Pakistan. He offered condolences for the loss of lives in the attack.
“We are one when it comes to fighting terror,” Modi posted on Twitter after speaking to Ghani.
At least 14 people, including four Indians, were killed, when terrorists attacked the Park Palace guesthouse in Kabul late at night on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister was briefed about the incident when he was onboard his special aircraft and was flying from New Delhi to Xian in northwest China to commence a three-day tour of China. He called up the Afghan President soon after landing in Xian.
Modi tweeted that Ghani had “expressed his sadness on the unfortunate demise of Indian citizens in the attack in Kabul”.
“India’s resolve to work and cooperate with Afghanistan and its people only grows with such attacks. (This) should be clear to all terrorists and their sponsors by now,” New Delhi’s envoy to Kabul, Amar Sinha, posted on Twitter. Sinha, himself, was apparently the main target of the terrorists, but he was not in the guesthouse when the attack took place.
The incident has taken place at a time when New Delhi has stepped up its efforts to deepen its engagement with the new Afghan government. Ghani was in New Delhi less than a fortnight ago on his maiden visit to India after taking over as the new Afghan President in September 2014.
Though his predecessor Hamid Karzai often joined India to publicly blame Pakistan for continuing to export terror to Afghanistan, the new Afghan President has apparently been keen to overhaul Kabul’s relations with Islamabad, ostensibly to ensure the latter’s support to his government’s efforts to start negotiations with Taliban.
Islamabad reacted to the Afghan President’s tour of India with a visit by M Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan, to Kabul earlier this week. He was accompanied by Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif and head of Inter-Services Intelligence, General Rizwan Akhtar.
Pakistan is keen to have “strategic depth” in Afghanistan and has been wary of India’s role in the reconstruction of the conflict-ravaged country.