After an absence, India back at Turkey meet on Afghan

After last year’s snub when Turkey did not invite India to the international conference on Afghanistan, external affairs minister SM Krishna will be flying to Istanbul next week for this year’s conference, where he will highlight India’s role in nation building in Afghanistan.

The key conference on Afghanistan will be held in Istanbul on November 2.

The US-backed conference will deliberate on reconciliation efforts and security in Afghanistan after the US and NATO drawdown in 2014. The conference’s previous edition, in January 2010, had run into a controversy after India was omitted from the list of invitees by Turkey, allegedly at the insistence of Pakistan.

The last conference was attended by Afghanistan, Pakistan, UK, US, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and others.

India later learnt that it was the Pakistan Army that had insisted on excluding India from the important conference and Turkey, which has strong ties with Pakistan, quietly acquiesced. India had lodged a formal protest with the Turkish mission, which then apologised for the omission and assured India of an invitation next time.

New Delhi is clear it wants an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led process of reconstruction and is willing to help Karzai regime in this process of reconstruction in whatever way it can.

The two countries recently signed a bilateral agreement, the first of its kind Afghanistan has signed with any country, on India training and equipping Afghan security forces.