Afghan President Hamid Karzai will be in India next month. His last visit one year back sealed a strategic partnership between India and Afghanistan aimed to tackle the changed security situation in the region after Nato troops pull out in 2014. How they deal with the country that lies between them will determine the future of security in South Asia.
This September in Washington, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar stated that her country is moving away from a long-standing doctrine of its foreign policy. “We seek no strategic depth in Afghanistan,” said Khar, speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations. “What I consider today to be the primary national interest of Pakistan is a peaceful and stable — not necessarily even friendly — Afghanistan.”
This is a welcome statement. With Nato troops winding down their Afghan operations over the next two years, South Asia’s feuding neighbours are positioning themselves to deal with the evolving security dynamics. But for India and Afghanistan to take Khar’s statement seriously, they need to see substantial policy changes from Islamabad.