- Thursday, February 27, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA and five Central Asian countries on Thursday (27) said they would form a joint working group for giving aid to Afghanistan to deal with its humanitarian crisis and the issue of granting recognition to the Taliban who stormed back to power in Kabul last August, an Indian official said.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi hosted a virtual summit with leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, countries that were once part of the erstwhile Soviet Union and some of which border Afghanistan to the north.
Modi hosted the meeting just days after Chinese president Xi Jinping chaired a similar virtual summit with the leaders from the same Central Asian nations, China’s official Xinhua news agency said, which shows that both the neighbours are competing for influence in the region which has significance in many respects.
Was happy to host the first India-Central Asia Summit with the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. We agreed to take India-Central Asia relations to new heights, through institutionalisation of the Summit mechanism.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 27, 2022
India and Central Asia share civilisational ties. Today, we agreed on expanding cultural and youth exchanges, promotion of yoga, Indian films and music in Central Asia. The new Joint Working Group on use of Chabahar port is a welcome step for enhancing regional connectivity.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 27, 2022
A joint declaration after Thursday’s summit said there was a broad regional consensus on issues related to Afghanistan and it includes the formation of a “truly representative and inclusive government”, dealing with extremist groups and drug-trafficking and preserving the rights of women, children and national ethnic groups and minorities, AP reported.
Modi and the five leaders also decided to set up another joint working group to develop the Chabahar port with Iran, Afghanistan’s western neighbour, to provide sea access to landlocked countries, Reenat Sandhu, secretary of India’s external affairs ministry told reporters in New Delhi.
Neither Afghanistan nor the Central Asian nations have an overland connectivity with India which has made investments in developing and running the Chabahar port to promote trade in the region.
New Delhi is keen to make Chabahar, Iran’s closest sea link to the Indian Ocean, a rival to Gwadar, located some 80 kilometres (50 miles) away in Pakistan, which Islamabad has been building with Beijing’s investment.
India also has provided a $450 million (£335 million) credit line to Uzbekistan for developing roads, a sewerage system and the information technology sector, the AP report added.
In 2020, India announced a $1 billion (£746 million) credit to five Central Asian countries to carry out priority projects in connectivity, energy, IT and healthcare, the external affairs ministry said.
