No boots on Afghan soil
India will not deploy troops to Afghanistan as part of a new US strategy for the war-torn country, the Indian defence minister said yesterday, but she promised to boost support for the recently unveiled effort.
After talks with US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Nirmala Sitharaman said India was prepared to increase training for Afghan personnel and help develop critical civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals.
"India's contribution to Afghanistan has been for a very long time, and has been consistently on developmental issues," Sitharaman said at a news conference with Mattis.
The "contribution has been on these grounds and we shall expand if necessary. However as we have made it very clear, there should not be boots from India on the ground."
Mattis' trip to India is the first by any member of President Donald Trump's cabinet. It comes just after Trump unveiled a new Afghanistan strategy and urged New Delhi to help.
"We applaud India's invaluable contributions to Afghanistan and welcome further efforts to promote Afghanistan's democracy, stability and security," Mattis said.
India has long vied with arch-rival Pakistan for influence in Afghanistan, building dams, roads and a new parliament in the troubled country. Last year it offered some $1 billion in aid.
It has also trained more than 4,000 Afghan National Army officers and provided helicopters to the Afghan Air Force.
Unveiling his Afghanistan policy last month, Trump angered Pakistan by saying it offered safe haven to "agents of chaos".
"There can be no tolerance of terrorist safe havens," Mattis said yesterday, without referencing Pakistan. "As global leaders, India and the United States resolve to work together to eradicate this scourge."
Under the plan, the US is sending more than 3,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to train and advise the country's security forces.
There is no timeline on when the US may pull its troops out -- a change from under Barack Obama, who set dates for when he wanted troops home.
But critics have questioned what the extra US soldiers can accomplish that previous forces -- who numbered some 100,000 at the height of the fighting -- have not.
Defence ties between India and US have expanded rapidly, with New Delhi buying US weapons worth $15 billion over the last decade, moving away from Russia.
Military experts say US weapons transfers aim at bolstering Indian capabilities to develop a counterweight against China's growing assertiveness in recent years.
Indian and US negotiators are now trying to move forward with a deal to supply the Indian navy with 22 Sea Guardian drone aircraft, whose June approval by the US government was the first such clearance to a non-Nato ally.
India wants the unarmed drones to help its navy lengthen the duration of its surveillance in the Indian Ocean, where Chinese naval ships and submarines make regular forays.
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