- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN national security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval on Tuesday (7) met William Burns, the chief of the US’s intelligence body Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). According to Indian news channel NDTV, the meeting took place on a day when the Taliban revealed names of people who would run their government in Afghanistan, including those which feature on the United Nations-designated list of terrorists.
The meeting of Burns, who reportedly met a top Taliban leader secretly in Kabul last month, with Doval would likely have featured New Delhi’s concerns over the emerging situation in Afghanistan. India has said that it expects the Taliban not to allow the country’s soil to allow anti-India activities to take place, especially those aiming to create instability in Jammu and Kashmir.
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Indian Ambassador to Qatar Deepak Mittal met senior Taliban leader Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai in Doha where he conveyed to him India’s worry.
Doval was also set to meet his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev in New Delhi on Wednesday (8). The meeting is likely to feature issues related to China, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Russian envoy to India Nikolay Kudashev recently warned that terror activities from Afghanistan could spread to Jammu and Kashmir.
India’s Ambassador to Russia DB Venkatesh Varma, however, said talks with the Taliban in Doha have not yielded the right results. “…India was not a direct participant in the Doha talks. India was also not part of the Troika Plus mechanism, but as I said, these mechanisms have not yielded the right results. I think one lesion is that it is better that India and Russia work together with respect to Afghanistan. That is the most important lesson for us,” he said, referring to the Qatar-hosted talks with the Taliban that paved the way for the US pull-out from Afghanistan last month, ending a war that last almost 20 years.
Pakistan’s alleged interference in Afghanistan has also left India worried. On Tuesday, India said its western neighbour continued to foment a “culture of violence” at home and across its borders, accusing the latter of using the United Nations’ platform to promote hate speech against India.
