Home India Afghan NSA meets Ajit Doval, India says no persecution of minorities under Ashraf Ghani

Afghan NSA meets Ajit Doval, India says no persecution of minorities under Ashraf Ghani

The government said religious persecution of minorities is not taking place under the government led by Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani.

NSA Ajit Doval.

As Afghanistan’s National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib met NSA Ajit Doval in New Delhi on Thursday, the government said religious persecution of minorities is not taking place under the government led by Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said religious persecution had taken place under the Taliban regime and the Mujahideen. “It is not happening under the present government… the present government addressed the concerns of minorities in Afghanistan,” he said, adding that Taliban had given a call in 2001 for minorities to convert to Islam.

His comments assume significance as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains and Parsis — but not Muslims — who entered the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014.

According to the Afghan embassy in Delhi, the Afghan NSA said during the meeting with Doval that terrorism is a common threat for the region.

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Doval welcomed Mohib and “stressed collective commitment by all countries to fight terrorism”, the Afghan embassy said. Doval told Modi that India is willing to cooperate, the embassy said.

The meeting took place against the backdrop of the Indo-US 2+2 ministerial meeting of External Affairs minister S Jaishankar and Defence minister Rajnath Singh with their American counterparts, US Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo and US Defence Secretary Mark Esper, in Washington DC on Wednesday.

According to the joint statement, the ministers conveyed their shared interest in a “peaceful, secure, stable, united, democratic, inclusive and sovereign Afghanistan”.

“They expressed support for Afghan-led and -owned negotiations that culminate in a sustainable peace, cessation of terrorist violence and preservation of the gains of the last 18 years. They applauded India’s efforts to build trade linkages and multi-modal connectivity infrastructure for Afghanistan to enhance its regional connectivity to sustain growth and development over the long term,” the joint statement said.

During the media interaction in Washington DC, Jaishankar said, “We are concerned about the future of Afghanistan. Which is why we’ve had a large development assistance program there. We believe that the reconciliation process in Afghanistan should be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned. We have every confidence that the gains which have been achieved by the international community over the last two decades will be protected and preserved in that process.”

Pompeo said, “With respect to conversations that Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is having in the region, we shared with our Indian counterparts, as we have consistently throughout our efforts to develop intra-Afghan negotiations and peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan, the path that we’re headed down. We are very transparent. We understand the concerns, too, that India has. Rightful concerns that they have about terrorism emanating from Pakistan, and we assured them that we would take that into account.”

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