Former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai remains a leader sought by the world and his own people. The reason is evident, as his comments to the media showed on Friday in the course of a visit to New Delhi. Mr Karzai demonstrated his acute grasp of the regional reality, as he spoke of ending extremism and checking the rise of the ISIS, ensuring peace and harmony for development, and finding ways for the return of normality in Kashmir in the context of a proxy war.
Coming from a country that has endured nearly four decades of continuing war caused by extremism fomented by Pakistan, Mr Karzai, not surprisingly, “appreciated” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s observation pertaining to Balochistan, where suppression of the people, killing and bloodshed has been the norm since the 1940s. Balochistan is the area from which extremism and terrorism is commonly exported to Afghanistan.
Mr Karzai made two other important points. Even as all steps must be taken to end extremism and terrorism, efforts should be made for friendship with Pakistan, and that a country of India’s size, philosophy and history should not be constrained by advice from Pakistan or the US to make and nurture its own friends.
