Washington: The US has said India has
adopted a "very responsible" approach towards Afghanistan and
stayed away from taking up a major role in training security
forces of the war-torn country so as not to exacerbate
Pakistan`s concerns.
"I think India has actually been very careful, very
mindful of the fact that Pakistan is sensitive to the types of
assistance it provides to the Afghans," Michele Flournoy, US
Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy, said.
"It has consciously chosen not to take a major role, for
example, in the training and development of the security
forces. They have a small police training programme for female
police officers in India," she said in response to a question
at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, according to
a copy of the transcript provided by the Pentagon here.
But India really has chosen "to stay away from that
effort in order not to exacerbate Pakistan`s concerns,"
Flournoy said.
"So I think they`ve taken a very responsible approach.
Their development assistance is extremely positive and helpful
in the country. And, ultimately, this is between Afghanistan
and India. But we`ve seen them take a very carefully
calibrated and helpful role to date," she said.
Afghanistan needs to develop positive relationships with
all of its neighbours, she said, noting that the Afghans and
Indians have recently signed a strategic partnership of their
own.
"We have not seen the details of that document, but our
understanding is that India is primarily at this point
providing a great deal of development assistance to
Afghanistan in the transportation and infrastructure sectors,
and so forth," she said.
PTI
