Afghanistan's Karzai seeks Indian military aid amid tensions with Pakistan

(Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai plans to discuss potential arms deals with Indian officials during a trip to New Delhi this week, officials said, at a time when tensions are running high on Afghanistan's disputed border with Pakistan.

Kabul's overtures to New Delhi are likely to rile Islamabad where a new government led by two-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif is set to take office soon, promising improved ties with India.

Pakistan has long resisted Indian involvement in Afghanistan, seeing it as a plan to encircle it, and any fresh wrangling between the rivals would add to Afghanistan's problems as the Western military withdrawal draws near.

Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi said the Afghan leader would discuss in New Delhi the flare-up on the Durand Line, the colonial-era border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in addition to ways to strengthen Afghan security institutions.

"Afghanistan has already agreed and signed a strategic pact with India and based on that agreement, India assists Afghanistan on several grounds, including the military sector," Faizi said.

"In order to strengthen Afghan security forces, we will ask India to help us with military needs and shortages," he said.

India has been training a limited number of Afghan military officers for years at its military institutions, but provided little weapons assistance except for some vehicles.

In 2011 New Delhi signed a strategic partnership agreement with Kabul, allowing the two sides to expand training as Afghan forces prepare to takeover security from foreign troops at the end of 2014.

An Indian foreign ministry spokesman said New Delhi's cooperation with Afghanistan was focused on development projects but security was also an important aspect given the challenges it faced.

"While we are striving to realise this vision of an economically viable Afghanistan ... we have no illusions that we can ignore the political and security issues that stand in the way of realising that vision," said Syed Akbaruddin.

He added the question of equipping Afghan forces was best discussed through the strategic partnership agreement and that a meeting would be held later this year to discuss security and political matters.

TENSIONS WITH PAKISTAN

Pakistan also proposed a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and offered military training to the Afghanistan national army, but Kabul has been cool to the idea.

Earlier this month border guards from the two countries, which have blamed each other for providing sanctuary to militant groups, clashed at their disputed border on the Durand Line.

Afghanistan said a policeman was killed, and accused Pakistan of using heavy artillery and tanks during the fighting along Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province. It added several Afghan border posts were destroyed.

Pakistan said the clashes were the result of unprovoked Afghan action.

Afghan security forces have since asked for better equipment to deal with the border threat. An official said that during the trip to New Delhi the Afghan delegation would explore the possibility of equipping the army with Indian artillery.

A NATO diplomat in Kabul said Afghanistan was also seeking to build up its air force and had sought aircraft to beef up border defences.

"The Afghans are taking the border problem very seriously. They have asked us for equipment ... emotions are very high," the diplomat said.

The fresh strains in Pakistan's ties with Afghanistan come at a time when hopes for an improvement in its relations with India have risen following the election of the business-friendly Sharif.

Sharif has said that the mistrust that has long dogged relations with India over a range of issues including Afghanistan must be tackled. Islamabad says India's expanding role in Afghanistan is aimed at destabilising it from the rear, a charge New Delhi denies.

A Pakistan defence analyst and retired Brigadier Shaukat Qadir didn't see any souring of relations between Pakistan and India because of the likely arms deal between Afghanistan and India.

"This is nothing new," he said. "The two countries have been engaged in similar deals for a long time."

(Additional reporting by Amie Ferris-Rottman in KABUL Frank Jack Daniel in NEW DELHI and Syed Raza Hassan in ISLAMABAD; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Afghans are wary of Nawaz Sharif - but should they be?

Nawaz Sharif's victory in Pakistan's general elections is being seen with some alarm in Afghanistan, where some fear it may mean more instability.

The fact that the Pakistani Taliban held off attacking Mr Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N), and the comments he made during the election campaign, reinforced the perception in Afghanistan that Nawaz Sharif is a "representative of the Pakistani establishment" which Afghans blame for most of their troubles.

Nawaz Sharif has suggested that Pakistan should end its support for the international alliance against terrorism and says he would talk to Pakistani militant groups.

Many Afghans fear he will make peace with the Pakistani Taliban, who will then stop carrying out attacks in Pakistan and focus solely on Afghanistan.

"Nawaz Sharif wants peace in Pakistan at the expense of stability in Afghanistan," says Rahmatullah, a resident of the western Afghan province of Herat.

"He doesn't want a stable and strong Afghanistan."

History lesson

The roots of these concerns lie in the past.

Mr Sharif was very close to Pakistan's former military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq, who was behind organising Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Both Gen Zia and Mr Sharif had close links with all seven Afghan mujahideen factions based in Pakistan.

This policy resulted in the fall of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul in 1992.

As prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif was instrumental in forming the mujahideen government in Peshawar, before sending it over the border to take power in Kabul.

Mr Sharif went to Kabul just a day after the mujahideen victory on 28 April 1992, the first and only foreign leader to visit.

Many in Afghanistan blame him for dismantling the Afghan security forces and fulfilling the mission of bringing Afghanistan into "Pakistan's sphere of influence".

In the run-up to Pakistani elections in October 1993, Nawaz Sharif's party occasionally taunted its rival, the PPP of Benazir Bhutto, by using the slogan "you gave up Dhaka, we took Kabul".

This was a reference to the PPP governing Pakistan when Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) seceded in 1971, while it was under the PML that the Pakistan-based mujahideen leaders were installed in Kabul.

The Taliban emerged in Afghanistan when Benazir Bhutto was Pakistan's prime minister. But it was Nawaz Sharif's government that officially recognised the Taliban government in Kabul on 25 May 1997.

In addition, as prime minister Mr Sharif openly praised the Taliban and its policies in Afghanistan during his failed attempts to introduce Sharia law in Pakistan through a constitutional amendment in 1998.

Although the party was out of power for 14 years, it has kept the relationship alive with some Afghan stakeholders, including the Hezb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of a powerful mujahideen faction that is now part of the Afghan insurgency and whose representatives are engaged in on-off talks with the government in Kabul.

Future hopes

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was the first foreign leader to welcome Mr Sharif's election. He praised Pakistan for holding general elections despite the violence.

In a phone conversation with Mr Sharif, President Karzai expressed his hope that relations between the two countries would improve with the sincere co-operation of Pakistan in the war on terrorism.

Nawaz Sharif met Afghan warlords and religious leaders at his residence during Afghan peace talks in 1993

Although the two leaders don't have a personal relationship, they have a few things in common. Both are devout Muslims and both had a shared goal of ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Afghan officials generally accuse Pakistan of sponsoring the Taliban in Afghanistan and have frequently asked Pakistan to dismantle what they call militant sanctuaries on its soil.

The Afghan government wants the new administration in Pakistan to formulate a clear policy towards brokering peace in Afghanistan by pressurising or convincing Taliban leaders, who Kabul says are all based in Pakistan.

Leaders of the PML (N) reject the pro-militant accusations made against the party.

"Afghanistan will feel the change that Pakistan now has a strong and popular government," Sartaj Aziz, a member of the PML (N)'s powerful central executive committee and a former foreign minister during Mr Sharif's second term, told the BBC.

"Bilateral relations will improve because we both have the same goal of achieving peace and the formation of a stable government [in Afghanistan] as a result of reaching some sort of reconciliation following the withdrawal of the US."

Saudi role

Unlike President Asif Ali Zardari's outgoing PPP government, which was trusted by neither the Pakistani army nor the Taliban, Nawaz Sharif has the potential to become a guarantor and mediator for peace talks.

He has already reached out to Pakistan's arch-rival India and indicated that he wants to revive the peace process he undertook with Delhi when he was last in power.

Good relations between India and Pakistan will have a positive impact on the situation in Afghanistan, where India's growing influence is viewed with concern in Islamabad.

Nawaz Sharif now has a mandate from the people of Pakistan and is respected and possibly feared by both the army and Afghan and Pakistani militant and religious groups.

In addition, he is also close to Saudi Arabia, one of only three countries (the other two being Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates) that recognised the Taliban when they were in power.

Saudi Arabia is still an important regional player and can influence Pakistan's Afghan policy and play an effective role in brokering peace between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

All this puts Nawaz Sharif in a much better position than his predecessors to help curb militancy and bring long-awaited peace to both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He says his top priority is the economy - for Pakistan to prosper he needs peace and stability not only in his own country but also in the neighbourhood.

But don't expect change overnight - Pakistan's powerful military is unlikely to cede Afghan policy easily to the new civilian administration.

BBC