New Delhi: India has joined the Taliban, Pakistan, China, and Russia to oppose America’s bid to take over the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. This comes days before the scheduled visit of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to New Delhi from October 9 to 16.
While not naming Bagram, a sharply worded joint statement issued by participants of the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan said this week: “They (the participants) called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighboring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability.”
US President Donald Trump has demanded that Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban hand over the country’s Bagram air base to Washington, five years after he signed a deal with the group that paved the way for the US withdrawal from Kabul.
The Taliban have rejected Trump’s demand, with chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying: “Afghans will never allow their land to be handed over to anyone under any circumstances”.
The Bagram air base, which has two concrete runways (one is 3.6 km, the other 3 km), lies about 50 km outside Kabul, and it played a key role in the US’s “war on terror” after 2001.
