We want good relations with all our neighboring countries of the region, Sher Mohd Stanakzai

In an interview with CNN-News18, Sher Mohd Stanakzai, Deputy Political Office of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and head of negotiation team with America spoke about Taliban’s administrative view towards India.

He said, “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, our foreign policy is to have good relation with all our neighboring countries and with the whole world. The American forces were here in Afghanistan for the last 20 years and after that, they are now withdrawing from the country, so we will have friendly relations with America after this and NATO also. I think they should come back and take part in the rehabilitation of Afghanistan. The same goes for India, we want to establish friendly relations before like cultural and economical and also other ties that we had with them. Not only with India, all our neighboring countries including Tajikistan, Iran and Pakistan”.

On being questioned about hostility towards India and the formation of a sanctuary for terror groups which is a threat to India such as Lashkar and Jaish, he said, “What comes up in media is most often wrong, there is no such statement or indication from our side. We want good relations with all our neighboring countries of the region. There was no threat from Afghanistan throughout our history to any of our neighbors including India and it will not happen at all. There is no doubt that there is long political and geographical dispute between India and Pakistan. We hope they do not use Afghanistan in their internal fight, they have a long border, and they can fight among themselves on the border. They should not use Afghanistan for this and we will not let any of the countries use our land for this.”

He confirmed that Taliban will not allow anyone to use the Afghan side against any country in the world.

Speaking about his training in IMA some decades ago, he said, “It was during my young age, I was trained there before the Russians came to Afghanistan. I was under training in IMA and graduated from IMA.”

He also stated that recent attack on Afghan might be by Daish not ISIS as they have accepted and taken responsibility.

When questioned about Hindus and Sikh who are still in Afghanistan, he said, “I think there is no requirement to evacuate them. Afghanistan is their homeland and country so they can live here peacefully and there will be no harm to their lives here. They can live as they were living before and we hope that the Hindus and Sikh who were here in Afghanistan and have migrated in the last 20 years because of that previous regime to India, we hope that we should be coming back to Afghanistan soon.”

According to him, Taliban is hopeful that once the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is announced, all those countries who are related in the region especially the U.S and other countries will support them.

Commenting on development work done by India in Afghanistan, he said “Development done by India is our national asset we will keep it like that and we hope that in future all incomplete work is completed by India. We invite India to come and start again and complete those projects. If somebody is coming and working in the country then we will have to provide them security.”