Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar announced that India will upgrade its technical mission in Afghanistan to a full-fledged embassy during the six-day visit by his Afghan counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi.
The announcement came a day after Pakistan bombed several alleged Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, targets in Afghanistan. The TTP is a designated terrorist group whose surge in attacks over the past three years is the most intense in a decade.
Some observers were surprised by Muttaqi’s visit to Delhi and the formal resumption of bilateral ties, given that he represents a fundamentalist Islamist dictatorship once accused of aiding the Pakistani-backed insurgency in Kashmir. India, by contrast, is a secular state and the world’s largest democracy.
Nevertheless, Muttaqi stated, “We never made any statement against India. Rather, we always sought good relations with India” during the American occupation – suggesting mutual realpolitik motives.
That is arguably the case and stems from Pakistan’s role in bringing the Taliban and India together. The Indo-Pakistan rivalry is well known, whereas worsening Taliban-Pakistan relations are largely driven by the dangerous security dilemma that emerged about a year after the end of the US occupation.
In brief, the Taliban fears US-Pakistan collusion against it after the coup against Imran Khan. At the same time, Pakistan is concerned about the Taliban’s refusal to recognize the Durand Line, a colonial-era and largely arbitrary boundary that divides ethnic Pashtun communities.
Accordingly, India and Afghanistan’s territorial disputes with Pakistan played a major role in their Taliban 2.0-era rapprochement. The shift was accelerated by US President Donald Trump’s recent call for US troops to return to Bagram Airbase – a move that would necessarily require Pakistani facilitation – and launched a new pressure campaign against India.
These developments unfolded alongside the US-Pakistan rapprochement, which is rapidly reviving their old Cold War-era strategic partnership, a relationship that India (and Russia) have long blamed for destabilizing the region at the time.
Recent reports that Pakistan may offer the US access to Pasni port, potentially paving the way for a return of US forces, coincide with Indian accusations that Pakistan backs terrorism in Kashmir and Taliban claims that it backs ISIS-K (an allegation Russia has subtly endorsed).
In turn, Pakistan accuses India of backing the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Taliban of backing the TTP, both of which are US-designated terrorist groups and could thus serve as the pretext for coordinated pressure against them. The BLA has targeted Chinese investments and nationals in Pakistan’s resource-rich Balochistan province.
On the topic of pressure, China may soon face renewed military challenges from the US due to the recent pro-American moves by its so-called “iron brother”, Pakistan.
Trump explicitly wants the return of US troops to Bagram Airbase to threaten nearby Chinese nuclear sites, which could only occur with Pakistani facilitation. The potential return of US forces to Pakistan could also achieve the same purpose. Trump’s newly threatened 100% tariffs on China, announced just as US-Pakistan ties enter a renaissance, further fuel suspicion.
While China is unlikely to abandon Pakistan – given its multibillion-dollar investments through the Belt and Road Initiative’s flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and its status as Pakistan’s top arms supplier – the US might soon demand Pakistan distance itself from China.
If Pakistan complies, as expected, China and India could begin coordinating support for Afghanistan as part of their nascent rapprochement seeking to counterbalance the revived US-Pakistan regional duopoly and thus reshape regional geopolitics.
This article first appeared on Andrew Korybko’s Substack and is republished with permission. Read the original here.
