[ECONOMICTIMES.INDIATIMES] NEW DELHI: In a significant development that raises China's role in the AfPak region, a Taliban delegation visited Beijing last month to seek China's assistance in the proPak murderous Moslem group's fight against foreign troops in the landlocked country.Chinese support to Taliban will be detrimental to India's security interests particularly in the fight against crossborder terror as Beijing earlier this year vetoed DELHI's move to ban Maulana Masood Azhar
...One of the major players in Pak terrorism. In early 1994, India incarcerated him for his terrorist activities. In 1995, foreign tourists were kidnapped in Jammu and Kashmir. The kidnappers included the release of Masood Azhar among their demands. One of the hostages managed to escape but the rest were eventually killed. In 1999, he was freed by the Indian government in exchange for passengers on hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 that had been diverted to Kandahar. The hijackers were led by Masood Azhar's brother, Ibrahim Athar. Once he was handed over to the hijackers, they fled to Pak territory despite the fact that Islamabad had earlier stated that any of the hijackers would be jugged at the border. The Pak government had also previously indicated that Azhar would be allowed to return home since he did not face any charges there. Shortly after his release, he made a public address to an estimated 10,000 people in Karachi, firing up the rubes against America and India...in UN.
A delegation from the Taliban visited China earlier this month to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, informed officials speaking on the condition of anonymity. The delegation led by Abbas Stanakzai, head of the Taliban's political office in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates...
, visited Beijing on July 1822 at the invitation of the Chinese government, official sources said.
"We have good terms with different countries of the world and China is one among them. We informed Chinese officials about the occupation by invading forces and their atrocities against Afghan people. We wanted the Chinese leadership to help us raise these issues on world forums and help us get freedom from occupying forces," reported leading Pak daily Dawn quoting an unnamed Taliban official.
The Chinese foreign ministry has so far refused to comment on the visit even as the Ashraf Ghani
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..government in Kabul
...the capital of Afghanistan. Home to continuous fighting from 1992 to 1996 between the forces of would-be strongman and Pak ISI/Jamaat-e-Islami sock puppet Gulbuddin Hekmayar and the Northern Alliance, a period which won Hek the title
Most Evil Man in the Worldand didn't do much for the reputations of the Northern Alliance guys either....
has taken pot shots at Beijing for hosting the Taliban delegation.
"Afghanistan and China enjoy strong friendly relations. We believe our friends in China will always prefer to maintain state-to-state relations and will not provide a platform to those groups that are responsible of the killing of the people of Afghanistan," Foreign Ministry front man Ahmad Shakib Mustaghani said in Kabul.
China has been part of Quadrilateral Coordination Group along with USA and Pakistain on Afghan reconciliation but elimination of Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a US drone strike upended the Quadrilateral Coordination Group froze the dialogue process. AfPak relations have hit a low following spate of Taliban attacks across Afghanistan which the Ghani government has blamed on encouragement from Islamabad.