Afghan soil won’t be allowed for carrying out activities against other countries: Foreign Minister Muttaqi

Kabul will soon send its diplomats to India as part of "step-by-step" efforts to improve bilateral relations, Afghan Foreign Minister Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said on Friday even as he asserted the Taliban will not allow anyone to use Afghan soil against other countries.

Muttaqi, who landed in New Delhi on Thursday on a six-day trip, is the first senior Taliban minister to visit India after the group seized power four years back.  India has not yet recognised the Taliban set-up.

In an interaction with a small group of journalists, after holding wide-ranging talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, the Afghan foreign minister invited Indian businesses to invest in his country's mining, minerals and energy sectors.

Muttaqi also pitched for India and Afghanistan joining hands to remove obstacles for development of the Chabahar port in Iran in view of the Trump administration bringing it under sanctions.

The Afghan foreign minister's visit to India assumed greater significance as it came at a time when both India and Afghanistan are having frosty relations with Pakistan over a range of issues including cross-border terrorism.

Muttaqi said Kabul will soon send its diplomats to New Delhi.

"The foreign minister (S Jaishankar) said you can send diplomats to New Delhi now. When we go back, we will select people and send them," he said.

In his meeting with Muttaqi, Jaishankar announced the upgrading of India's technical mission in Kabul to the status of an embassy.

Asked if the Taliban regime will appoint an ambassador, Muttaqi said: "We will now send diplomats and gradually the contacts will increase." Till now, the Afghan missions in India have officials who were largely appointed by the previous Ashraf Ghani government.

To a question on whether the Indian government will hand over the Afghan embassy premises in New Delhi to the Taliban regime, the foreign minister shot back: "It is with Afghanistan; it belongs to us."

Muttaqi said the ties between India and Afghanistan are witnessing steady progress in the last four years.

"This is my first visit to India and it was decided that India will upgrade its technical mission in Kabul to a diplomatic mission and our diplomats will come to New Delhi. Gradually, the goal is to take things to normal," he said.

The Afghan foreign minister said his country will not allow its territory to be used to "threaten or harm others" and asserted that there is no presence of any terror group including Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Afghanistan.

"Not even one inch of soil is controlled by anyone other than the Islamic Emirate. These groups and tanzeems are not present in Afghanistan, they have left Afghanistan in these four years. We finished those against whom we conducted operations," he said.

"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has proven over the course of the last four years that its territory will not be allowed to be used against others," Muttaqi said.

There have been concerns in New Delhi over the possibility of use of Afghan territory by terrorist groups to launch attacks.