India livid after Turkey snubs Delhi on Afghan Conference

Posted on 31 January 2010. Tags: Turkey

Turkey snubs India on Afghanistan: “This may casts shadow over Turkish President Abdullah Gül’s visit to India,”. President Abdullah Gul is visiting Gul to visit India and Bangladesh. Until February 13. Delhi is livid with anger and filed a formal protest.

A short story in the Turkish Weekly gives some insight into the frost on the Turkish-Indian relations. The comment about the meeting being closed to reporters is poignant pointer to the protests.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul met with Indian Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Pawan K. Bansal in Ankara on Wednesday. The meeting at the Cankaya Presidential Palace was closed to press. Thursday, 21 January 2010. Turkish Weekly

Delhi should reserve its anger not only at Istanbul, but should direct it at Wahsington, London, and also Kabul–all of which asked the Indian foreign minister to sit in the 2nd row during the London Conference. This was pointed out by the Times of India. It is pedagogical to note that the US Secretary of Defense also politely turned down Delhi’s offer of military help in Afghanistan. It turns out that for NATO and ISAF–and the immediate neighbors of Afghanistan–the choice is clear–Pakistan is more important. No one can discount Bharat, but Islamabad has a direct bearing on the events in Afghanistan, and Delhi has to go through multiple layers of proxies.

While the international press has played down the Turkish-Bharat (aka India) rift, the diplomats in Delhi are furious. Both the Times of India and the Indian Express published stories about Delhi’s anger at being kept out of the regional conference in Islanbul. Istanbul had already expected this reaction, and is ready for the fallout of the decision.

New Delhi has lodged a protest with Ankara for keeping it out of the Afghanistan security conference in Istanbul, apparently at the behest of Islamabad. This may cast a shadow over Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s visit to India next fortnight. Gul, the organiser of the conference, is on a two-day visit to India from February 9 after which he will leave for Dhaka.

India, France and Japan, all of whom have a substantial stake in stabilising Kabul, had protested to Ankara for not being invited to the conference to mull over the military and political future of Afghanistan. Paris and Tokyo were squeezed in at the last moment with New Delhi being left out in the cold.

The highest levels of the UPA government are upset at the Ankara snub as Turkey tilted towards Pakistani plan of keeping the conference at first confined to the immediate neighbours of Afghanistan and then shutting the door on India. This is despite the fact that Russia had invited Indian MEA officials for a separate Afghanistan conference in Moscow on January 25 and the United Kingdom has invited Foreign Minister S M Krishna to attend the London conference on January 28. Indian Express. Kept out of Afghan meet, India lodges protest with Turkey. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Kept-out-of-Afghan-meet–India-lodges-protest-with-Turkey/571978

Turkey disappoints New Delhi ahead of Gül’s visit to India
Indian officials have conveyed their disappointment over the fact that they were not invited to a regional conference that was hosted in ?stanbul earlier this week.

Ahead of today’s international conference on Afghanistan in London, the Afghan and Pakistani presidents and senior diplomats and ministers from the UK, the US, Iran, Tajikistan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and several representatives from international agencies gathered together for the ?stanbul Summit on Friendship and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia, hosted by President Abdullah Gül on Tuesday.

India was represented at a conference on Afghanistan that was hosted in Moscow earlier this month and will be represented at foreign ministerial level in today’s global conference in London, reliable sources, speaking with Today’s Zaman on the condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday.

“It is a little bit awkward that India has not been invited to a conference in the middle of these two conferences,” the same sources said, adding that the reason for India’s absence at the conference stemmed from Pakistan’s objection conveyed to the Turkish side.

“The issue has been taken up with the Turkish authorities,” the sources said, while Turkish Foreign Ministry sources said they haven’t received an official complaint from the Indian side on the issue.

India’s uneasiness was revealed through a news report posted on Wednesday by the online English daily www.indianpress.com. New Delhi has lodged a protest with Ankara for keeping it out of the Afghanistan security conference in ?stanbul, apparently at the behest of Islamabad, the report said. “This may cast a shadow over Turkish President Abdullah Gül’s visit to India,” it suggested, referring to Gül’s scheduled visit to India, which is to take place in the first half of next month. 28 January 2010, Thursday, TODAY’S ZAMAN ANKARA

After the pomp and ceremony in Delhi and Dhaka, it is obvious that there will be some backtracking and some statements will confer the appropriate acolades on Delhi–but there there are some new realities emerging that may be hard to ignore.

The ISI’s insistence, according to reports, that it alone will mediate between the Taliban and the US and Afghan authorities, without permitting direct contacts between the warring sides, may be read as an attempt to ensure that Pakistan’s oft-touted but little explained ‘national security interests’ in Afghanistan are safeguarded

The Saudis, Turks, and Pakistanis have their own regional interests which override Bharat’s territorial ambitions. When Ankara’s own interests clash with those of Delhi–then Istanbul will protect its own interests before it helps Delhi. It is clear that the Turkish peoples of Central Asia are more of a concern for Ankara then a Western looking Turkey before Gul/Erdogan took power.