Afghanistan
By Bhabani Sen Gupta

Afghanistan which, together with Pakistan, is snowballing to become
the most critical issue for the United States as well as India, albeit for very
different reasons, also promises to bring together the NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) for bringing peace and order
to Afghanistan. The SCO session held in Moscow at the end of March
was also the first bridge, thin and lean though was it, between the strategic
divide between the US and China. It got little space in the world media
but made its mark on the emerging world atlas of diplomacy.
For the sheer attendance it received from the strategic groups of
Nations on the two sides of the strategic divide if not for the depth and substance of the explorations that took place at the two-day event, the Moscow session of SCO marked a watershed.
The core group of the Shaighai Six---China, Russia and the four
Central Asian countries ( seven, with the full membership of Mongolia)
was joined by an astonishing an array of observers from the United States,
Western Europe, NATO, Afghanistan and India. The most high profile
personality present was the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon.
The Group of Six turned out to be a Group of 36.
The Government of India sent to the Moscow meeting a former
Diplomat, Satiinder K Lumba, picked up by prime minister Manmohan Singh
to represent his govt at parleys related to the Afpak Agenda of the US
President, Barack Obama Lumba is a former High Commissioner to
Pakistan. It should be noted that exchanges with Obama’s trouble-
shooter for issues packed together with the Afpak acronym is, so far,
the foreign secretary, Menon. Richard Halbrooke, during his day-long
visit to New Delhi on April 7, after his half-a-week long diplomatic
explorations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, met with Menon, and not with
the foreign minister or with the minister of state at the Foreign Office.
India has not so far been involved in depth at the political level with
Obama’s Afpak strategy.
The European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe were represented by senior officials, Britain and France were
conspicuously absent.
The SCO session in Moscow proved to be completely non-confrontational in discussions. The foreign ministers of China and Russia
Stressed that neither the economic recession nor the financial crisis nor
Indeed the political-strategic issues and regional conflicts could be resolved
Without cooperation between and among the nations poralised by the
Bush administration in the eight years of the new century. Both welcomed
Barack Obama’s offer to bridge and if possible close the divides that plague
The global world order.
There was a consensus that problems posed by militant Islam in
The Pak-Afghan region and other areas needed increasing cooperation
Between and among nations globally as well as in the conflictual regions.
Foreign ministers of the Central Asian countries affirmed their readiness
to work with Pakistan and the US for resolving the conflicts if their
cooperation is sought on the basis of equality of status, respect for
mutual political, religious and cultural systems, and an agreed praxis of
international relations free of unilateralism, hegemony, and trade, racial
and ideological barriers.
Indeed, foreign ministers of these countries and also of Afghanistan
affirmed that full cooperation of the Central Asian republics, Iran, China
and Russia was essential for resolution of the problems of multiple,
inter=secting conflicts raging in Pakistan and Afghanistan’
The Moscow session of SCO provided opportunities for informal
Contacts, including ice-breaking ones, between governments locked in
Conflicts---such as the U.S. and Iran and Afghanistan and Iran. Ice-breaking
Contacts were established between representatives of NATO and the
Shanghai Six relating to cooperation for resolving the Afghan-Pakistan
Or Afpak problems.
Satindra Lumba stressed the importance of increasing coordination
Between various groups exploring separately prospects and problems of
Regional and global cooperation .His point was supported by several
Foreign ministers attending the session, including those of China, Russia and
Kazaghstan///