Karzai reassures Pakistan over India alliance

Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought Wednesday to reassure Pakistan about his country's new strategic partnership with India, which risks raising fears in Islamabad of encirclement. The alliance sealed between Afghanistan and India on Tuesday -- the first such pact between Kabul and another country -- deepens already friendly ties and aims to boost trade, security and cultural links. It will see India, which has given more than $2 billion in aid to the war-torn country, take a bigger role in training Afghan troops and security forces. "Pakistan is a twin brother, India is a great friend. The agreement that we signed yesterday with our friend will not affect our brother," Karzai told an audience in New Delhi. Indian involvement in Afghanistan is extremely sensitive because of the delicate and often deadly power games in South Asia, with Pakistan vehemently opposed to its arch-foe meddling in what it considers its backyard. Some observers worry that greater involvement by India will lead to a "proxy war" on Afghan soil between it and nuclear-armed Pakistan, which is accused of using militant groups to attack Indian targets. C. Raja Mohan, senior analyst at the Centre For Policy Research think-tank in New Delhi, said Karzai's speech was clear in its message that Pakistan would need to be brought on board for peace to prevail. It "highlights one point very clearly: that India and Afghanistan will have to find ways to deal with Pakistan," he told AFP. "Both countries are facing enormous difficulties in dealing with Pakistan." Afghanistan and India both suspect Pakistan of supporting militant groups such as the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban, which is thought to plan attacks from across the border. But Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Wednesday called for joint regional peace efforts. "We all are in the same region and we want to work together for peace and prosperity in the region and I think we should work together," he said in Islamabad when asked about the India-Afghanistan alliance. Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said Wednesday that his country's commitment to Afghanistan remained steadfast "despite persistent attacks on Indian interests engineered by forces inimical to the India-Afghan friendship." The Afghan-Indian deal is part of Karzai's strategy of building up alliances to help stabilise his country ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of NATO forces after more than a decade of fighting. He is also in talks with the European Union, the United States and Russia. "The signing of the strategic partnership with India is not directed against any country. It is not directed against any other entity. This is for Afghanistan to benefit from the strength of India," Karzai added. Karzai stressed that the focus of his efforts in bringing peace to his country would now be on talking to the government in Islamabad, which he said had "unfortunately not yet received the result that we want". The assassination of Kabul's peace envoy to the Taliban last month forced Karzai to re-examine his long-running strategy of trying to broker contacts with the Islamist militant group to open negotiations. But relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are severely strained after Karzai accused his neighbour of playing a "double-game" because of its links to militant groups. "We have now decided not to talk to the Taliban because we don't know their address. When we find them,  we will talk to them. Therefore we have decided to talk to our brothers, our neighbours, in Pakistan," Karzai said.