In February, during an official visit to India, President Abdullah Gül, in an apparent bid to ease India’s displeasure with its not being invited, extended an invitation to the South Asian country to participate in a subsequent conference on Afghanistan held again in İstanbul later in 2010.
In an April interview with Today’s Zaman, when reminded of the issue regarding the January conference, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said: “If I may recall, it was the conference of immediate neighbors of Afghanistan, an initiative of Pakistan, which Turkey kindly volunteered to host. And, India is not an immediate neighbor of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, India is represented in other international forums on Afghanistan.” When asked whether India was an immediate neighbor of Afghanistan or not, Naik briefly said: “Is Turkey an immediate neighbor of Afghanistan? I don’t know. I want to know.”
Ramesh Chandra, charge d’affaires at the Embassy of India, who was accompanying Naik during the interview, meanwhile, said: “Afghanistan is in our immediate neighborhood.”
“What I want to say is that no country can really stick to its borders, each country has a zone of influence. There is something called diplomacy and diplomacy transcends. What is good for everybody in the world is having no wars and having better relations among peoples,” Naik then underlined.
“I would like people to convey to the Pakistani people that we have no territorial designs on any country, none at all, we have enough territory of our own -- enough and very difficult to manage. Afghan and Indian relations go back over a thousand years. Afghanistan used to practice the most tolerant form of Islam in the world at one time. India is very much interested in getting Afghanistan to a peaceful state; Pakistan is very much interested in getting control over Afghanistan, because at present they do not have too much strategic depth. With Afghanistan, they want to control it through the Taliban. Taliban control is like riding a tiger, you’ll never know when it will turn back and beat you. India is very much interested in Afghanistan’s reconstruction. We are making a lot of efforts towards that,” Naik also said.
