It is "shameless" of India to engage the Afghan Taliban in Qatar, said Pakistan’s National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf, arguing that New Delhi had supported operations against the insurgent group for a long time.

The remark came in reaction to India’s recent outreach to certain factions of the Afghan Taliban. 

A senior Qatari official confirmed that Indian officials made a “quiet visit” to Doha recently in order to meet the Taliban’s political leadership based there.

When asked how Pakistan viewed this Indian’s approach, Yusuf said, "I want to ask this: with what [moral] standing did this Indian high-level official meet [the Taliban] there? Did they not feel ashamed?" 

"[The Indians] kept having the Taliban killed daily and kept giving funds for operations against them and today they have reached there to have talks," Yusuf was quoted as saying by Dawn. “The meetings were a matter of shame and not a strategic move.”

However, in reality, India has had a very limited military role-- training Afghan officials and donating few MI-17 helicopters--in Afghanistan, especially after 2001. Though India’s humanitarian and development assistance in the form of grants expanded significantly--close to $3 billion -Islamabad has always been critical of New Delhi’s role in Afghanistan. 

In fact, India’s strategic interest in the post 9/11 political setup in Afghanistan firmed Islamabad’s resolve to back the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Clearly, Pakistan sees the Taliban as a means to limit India’s influence in its neighborhood. 

Reacting to Yusuf’s remark, Avinash Paliwal, an associate professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and the author of ‘My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan’ tweeted, “India’s outreach to the Taliban is limited and late-in-the-day. But, it seems to have upset Pindi (Pakistan military) enough for them to evoke ‘shame’.” 

On the impact of India’s move on the Taliban-Pakistan relations, Paliwal, in a recent piece for The Hindustan Times, said, “If anything, India’s outreach to the Taliban might complicate Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban once the latter comes to power and faces the pressures of governance and administration,” 

For now, India’s aim seems to be to safeguard its interests in Afghanistan and ensuring that Afghan soil won’t be used by anti-India militant groups. 

(SAM)