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Lambah, Karzai meet likely
By Atul Aneja
KABUL, DEC. 10. Afghanistan's interim head of government, Mr. Hamid Karzai, arrives here on Wednesday as part of an exercise to position a post-Taliban leadership. India's Special Envoy on Afghanistan, Mr. S. K. Lambah, also arrives on the same day. A meeting between Mr. Lambah and Mr. Karzai is not ruled out.
By establishing contact with Mr. Karzai, India will reach out to the Pashtun element of the leadership at the highest level. India already enjoys special ties with the Tajik element of the Afghan hierarchy. Afghanistan's powerful Interior Minister, Mr. Yunus Qanooni, who represented the Northern Alliance delegation at Bonn, significantly chose India as his first official overseas destination, even prior to his arrival in Kabul. In a sign of the importance India attaches to Afghanistan, the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, is expected to represent India when the new government formally assumes charge on December 22.
India's diplomatic activism in Afghanistan is partly explained by the fact that Pakistan had marginalised its influence during the Taliban regime. By pushing in the Taliban, Pakistan appeared to have acquired a ``strategic depth'' vis-a- vis India. In all the earlier wars with India, Pakistan was looking for a safe haven to transfer and preserve its military equipment in case the conflict went out of control.
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