US Looking Into Potential Role of India in Afghanistan: Official

The US believes that India is well-suited to assist Afghanistan government to improve the security of the country.

The US is looking into the potential role of India and its neighbours in bringing stability to Afghanistan, a top American intelligence official has said, underlining that the Trump administration continues to review its policies in the war-torn country.

In response to a question on the reasons for which the US is in Afghanistan for nearly 17 years now, US Director of National Intelligence Dave Coats said policymakers are assiduously working on it.

“We’ve been there, what, 16-17 years. But the history goes back before that. The president has raised, I think, legitimate questions on that very question,” he said in response to a question, if the Trump administration is looking at a stalemate.

And that is being worked through assiduously by the policymakers with our constant provision of information relative not just to Afghanistan, but relative to South Asia as a whole, because we’re talking here about Pakistan, India, the South Asia region, which also brings China into the play, given their interest in expanding their sphere of influence, and it’s complicated and it’s difficult.

Dave Coats

“Decisions have to be made that haven’t been made yet relative to what the US response should be, given the situation as it now exists,” Coats said, adding that he and his team has spent a lot of time trying to really provide the very best intelligence they have about stability of the Afghanistan government at this point.

In a report attached along with the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2018, the Senate Armed Services Committee, headed by Senator John McCain, had said it believes that India, as a regional partner to Afghanistan and a major defence partner of the US, is well-suited to assist Afghanistan government to improve the security of the country and the broader region, and can work on a trilateral basis with the US and Afghanistan to do so.

(The article has been edited for length.)

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