- Wednesday, February 26, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Indian government is working on plans to get leaders of five Central Asian countries, three of which share a border with Afghanistan, as chief guests for the Republic Day parade and celebrations on January 26, 2022, sources told The Indian Express.
The daily said citing sources that an informal outreach has already been made through diplomatic channels. It was also learnt that the Indian external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is likely to hold a dialogue with his counterparts from those five nations over the next weekend – December 18 and 19.
The outreach is expected to lay the groundwork for the summit at the leaders’ level, the sources added.
They added that if the plans work out and if the Covid situation permits, five presidents – Kazakhstan’s Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan’s Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon and Kyrgyzstan’s Sadyr Japarov – will reach India for the Republic Day celebrations.
Of the three countries, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan share a border with Afghanistan.
Earlier, an initiative was taken to invite countries of the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) group, which includes Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal besides India. The move did not materialise, according to the sources.
The five Central Asian nations are key to the situation in Afghanistan post the Taliban’s return to power in August. New Delhi has been engaging with them over the past few months. Recently, the national security advisers (NSAs) of the five nations attended a regional security dialogue on Afghanistan in the Indian capital (along with Russia and Iran) which was chaired by India’s NSA Ajit Doval. All the representatives had expressed concern over the current situation in Afghanistan.
Engagement with the Central Asian countries was first formulated in the past decade when India framed the “Connect Central Asia policy” in 2012.
It was given a fillip when Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to the five countries in July 2015 — the first Indian Prime Minister to do so after these republics were born in the early 1990s following the disintegration of the erstwhile USSR.
The connect with these Central Asian countries is important for a variety of reasons: security cooperation in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan; China’s influence in the region which is strategically vital; connectivity plans including the International North South Transit Corridor (INSTC), energy needs, cultural links, etc.
The last time leaders of a group of countries were invited to the Republic Day celebrations was in 2018 when those from the 10 member states of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) were invited.
This year, British prime minister Boris Johnson was supposed to be present as the chief guest on the Republic Day but it was cancelled due to the pandemic.
