Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani
Seven months after taking over as Afghanistan President, Ashraf Ghani is arriving on his first state visit to India today. Since his inauguration, Mr Ghani had visited China and Pakistan. When asked whether the timeline of his foreign visits was a reflection of his priorities, the Afghanistan President used a popular Dari proverb, "
Der ayad, durust ayad (Better late than never)."
Mr Ghani emerged victorious in the Afghanistan election after a six-month-long and contentiou election process. And his assuming office, his visits to Pakistan and China are being seen by many analysts as a policy shift - focusing on Islamabad - at the cost of New Delhi.
But the Afghanistan President denied grading down of the relationship with India and said he enjoys great personal rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "I had the pleasure of meeting Prime Minister Modi at SAARC. We've really hit it off. We can talk to each other. We've had telephonic conversations and high ranking delegations repeatedly. Afghanistan is going to be a platform for regional and global cooperation, not a battlefield for proxy wars," Mr Ghani told NDTV in Kabul.
When questioned on whether he saw India and Pakistan fighting a proxy war in his country, Mr Ghani said, "It's not India. What it is that there is a conception in the old system that a weak neighbour must be preyed upon - that rupture in authority structure allows for contention. What we must realise now is that the state system as we've known is under attack. So if people want to play short sighted games, it's going to have medium to long term devastating consequences."
President Ghani parried the follow up question on who it was who was playing this deadly game, saying, "Everybody. I don't want to take names. But what is important is regardless of what the past has been we need to lift our sights and change our game. Cooperation between states in the region to create regional stability and prosperity is key to the future."