India and Afghanistan give strong message to Pakistan

September 17, 2016 Hot from the Oven Valli Sarvani No comments

India and Afghanistan committed together to remove obstacles in fighting terrorism. The two countries gave a strong message to Pakistan by deciding to hold the next Heart of Asia (HoA) conference in Amritsar.

Furthermore, India announced that it would be extending $1 billion as additional development assistance to the other country. India’s help will let Afghanistan focus on both capacity-building in the social sector and clean energy projects like hydel-power.

India PM Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani decided to hold the HoA conference in Amritsar. It will happen in December. The conference will have 14 countries discussing peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Both of the countries talked about Pakistan continuing the blockage of transit rights for goods to travel between India and Afghanistan.

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar stated that both leaders raised concerns about the 1.7 lakh tonnes of wheat that India offered Afghanistan in December 2015 which remain undelivered. He said that the shipment is being blocked.

As per the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit trade Agreement, trade and goods are only allowed from Afghanistan upto the Wagah border with India. It does not allow from India to Afghanistan. Other agreements like the Motor Vehicles Agreement are still in pending because of lack of support from Pakistan.

In order to facilitate the exchange of wanted terrorists and criminals, India and Afghanistan also signed an extradition treaty. This treaty has been delayed since April 2015. Both countries also made agreements regarding peaceful uses of outer space and cooperation on civil and commercial matters.

The two leaders also discussed about faster implementation of the trilateral agreement among Afghanistan, Iran and India. It was agreed in May 2016. The plan was to create a network of regional connectivity around Iran’s Chabahar port.

While the leaders didn’t directly mention Pakistan, they both said that the concerned countries should stop all sponsorship, support, provision of sanctuaries to terrorists.

Image credit: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)