Tillerson in Kabul says approach to Pak condition-based

Smita Sharma

New Delhi, October 24 

Ahead of his Delhi stopover, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson paid a surprise visit to Kabul on Monday. 

He was hosted by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive of the National Unity government Dr Abdullah Abdullah.

Tillerson, who is on his first official visit to South Asia after the West Asia leg, discussed US President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled Afghanistan strategy. Trump had sought a larger active development role for India in the war-torn country.

Tillerson in his remarks stressed it is “imperative to deny safe havens to terrorists” and sent out a message to Pakistan.

“We have made some very specific requests of Pakistan in order for them to take action to undermine the support the Taliban and other terrorist organisations receive in Pakistan. As we’ve said in this whole strategy, this is a conditions-based approach and so our relationship with Pakistan will also be conditions-based,” said Tillerson in response to a question by the travelling American press pool. 

It will be closely watched if Tillerson echoes similar messages when he holds talks with Pakistani leadership on Tuesday before arriving in Delhi on Tuesday night or softens his tone on the frontline non-NATO ally. “Pakistan needs to, I think, take a clear-eyed view of the situation they’re confronted with in terms of the number of terrorist organisations that find safe haven inside of Pakistan. And so we want to work closely with Pakistan to create a more stable and secure Pakistan as well,” added Tillerson.

There has been a sharp spike in attacks by the Taliban in Afghanistan, including the deadly terror strike at the Afghan National Army base in Kandahar last week killing nearly 60 people and the earlier Kabul attack during the visit of US Defence Secretary Gen Mattis.

Tillerson in his press interaction confirmed that “the political commission, the Taliban political commission office is still open’’ and the US is looking to engage with the moderate voices within the Taliban to seek reconciliation. 

Ashraf Ghani assured Tillerson of his commitment to anti-corruption, governance and the fairness of the elections coming up in 2018 in the country. 

Interestingly, Tillerson’s Kabul stop-over came hours ahead of President Ghani’s one-day working visit to India. Regional security challenges, cross-border terrorism and economic cooperation will dominate talks between India-Afghan and India-US leaders over the next 48 hours. New Delhi and Washington have intensified engagements over the reconstruction work in Kabul, even as the Trump administration has sent out mixed signals of re-hyphenation of India and Pakistan.