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People evacuated from Kabul arrive at Hindon Air Force base near New Delhi, on Sunday. Despite entreaties from the Taliban, India choose to evacuate its diplomats earlier this month. AP hide caption

People evacuated from Kabul arrive at Hindon Air Force base near New Delhi, on Sunday. Despite entreaties from the Taliban, India choose to evacuate its diplomats earlier this month.

MUMBAI One of the most prominent symbols of Afghanistan's democracy the national parliament building, with its giant bronze dome and marble fountains was a gift from the world's largest democracy.

Alongside the United States, India has spent the past 20 years trying to foster a democratic system in Afghanistan. It invested $3 billion into building Afghan roads, bridges, schools and clinics.

In 2015, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Kabul to inaugurate the $90 million parliament building, made with marble quarried from Rajasthan. He and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani spoke about their "special friendship" that was "bound by a thousand ties."

Now, with Ghani out of power, the U.S. withdrawing and the Taliban taking over, India is one of the countries that may stand to lose the most.

Diplomats and analysts say that for India, the power shift in Kabul almost certainly means the painful loss of a fellow democracy albeit a beleaguered one that rested on U.S. support in an otherwise largely hostile region. It could also mean a loss of safety and security for India, if militants from its neighbor and archrival, Pakistan, expand training bases into Afghanistan.

India financed construction of Afghanistan's parliament building, just one part of India's 20-year effort to foster a democratic system in Afghanistan. Rahmat Gul/AP hide caption

And it's very likely, they say, to mean a loss of Indian economic power and influence in a region increasingly dominated by another neighbor it's uneasy about: China.

First off, India has to figure out who its new contact is in Kabul or if it has any there at all. India reportedly has had communications with the Taliban. But Afghanistan's ambassador to New Delhi says he has had none yet with the militant group.

"The past week and a half has been very difficult. Our communications [with Indian officials] remain intact," Farid Mamundzay, the ambassador, tells NPR from New Delhi. As far as he knows, he's still Afghanistan's legal representative in India. "But as things become clearer in the weeks and months ahead, there may likely be changes."

Mamundzay will have to decide whether to stay on if asked under the Taliban. He has concerns about the group's record on women's rights, though the Taliban have said they will be more moderate than they were in the past.

A man carries the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book, that was brought to India by Afghan Sikhs who landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi on Tuesday. Money Sharma/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

"As of now, their messages and rhetoric have been quite soft. Now it's up to them to prove that they mean it," Mamundzay says. "If they mean it, then, of course, I would continue to serve my people. But if the meaning is missing, and only words exist then I would not continue cooperating with the future government."

When the U.S. timeline for withdrawal became clear earlier this year, New Delhi is believed to have quietly established back channels of communication with the Taliban though Indian officials won't confirm that.

As the Taliban rolled into Kabul on Aug. 15, they reportedly contacted Indian officials, saying they would guarantee Indian diplomats' safety if they would keep their embassy open in Kabul. According to the Hindustan Times, Indian officials weighed the Taliban's offer, but then received intelligence that gave them pause: that Pakistan-based militants may have entered Kabul with the Taliban. On Aug. 17, India evacuated its Kabul-based diplomats and shut its embassy. It had already closed its consulates in other Afghan cities.

India's worst fear is that Afghanistan will become a haven for militants from Pakistan. India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed neighbors and nemeses who've fought many wars. Pakistan has long-standing ties with the Taliban and has long given refuge to militants attacking India.

"Our strategic interest is definitely to make sure that our borders are secure and protected from the influx of terrorist groups, and that a neighbor like Pakistan doesn't exploit the situation in Afghanistan as it has in the past," Nirupama Rao, a former foreign secretary of India, tells NPR.

So when India reportedly picked up intelligence about the alleged presence of Pakistani militants in Kabul this month, it decided not to take any chances.

Rao, who has also served as India's ambassador to the U.S. and to China, says India would like Washington to put pressure on Pakistan to stop any flow of militants into Afghanistan.

"We obviously cannot let Afghanistan regress to a dark age," she says.

In addition to building Afghan infrastructure, India has helped organize trade routes to Afghanistan and through it, to countries in Central Asia. It secured waivers from U.S. sanctions to build the $8 billion Chabahar port in Iran, hoping it could be a key trade route to Afghanistan that bypasses Pakistan. India was also part of a consortium planning a 4,400-mile rail network linking Afghanistan with Europe.

Now those projects face uncertain futures.

"This is a strategic plan that India has nursed for a very long time, and now all that investment has come to a grinding halt, given the developments in Afghanistan," says Happymon Jacob, an associate professor of diplomacy at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. "It may end up being too much work. It's better that India do its trade with other countries, rather than bending over backwards and reaching out to Central Asia."

India prioritized education for Afghans, too. It built girls' schools. Indian universities have educated thousands of Afghan students. This week, many of them watched with horror as Kabul fell to the Taliban, wondering if they'll ever return home.

"India has been a major historic partner of the Afghan people. Our relationship hasn't been only government to government. We had this relationship at multiple layers," Mamundzay says.

He hopes that will continue.

"We need Indian investment in Afghanistan. We need Indian technology, Indian resources," the ambassador says.

But China may be able to invest even more in Afghanistan.

India and China are the world's two most populous countries. They share the world's longest unmarked frontier, stretching more than 2,100 miles, and they've fought over it many times. Tensions have been especially high since a June 2020 border clash left 20 Indian troops dead. India chose to retaliate off the battlefield, by banning dozens of Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok.

Meanwhile, China has been building a giant global infrastructure network including roads, pipelines, power plants and ports, called the Belt and Road Initiative.

India is not part of it. But Pakistan is and Afghanistan soon could be, too.

"The ascendance of China in Afghanistan will try to unify the entire region minus, of course, India," Jacob says. "This will also sort of strengthen the fears in India that there is an actual Chinese encirclement taking place."

"They want to build that 'great wall of steel,' to use [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping's words," Rao says. Beijing, she says, is keen on "exploiting Afghanistan's rich natural resources, and bringing Afghanistan into this whole network of connectivity. And they are not going to be talking about human rights while doing this."

For India, the possible expansion of Chinese infrastructure into Afghanistan means the world's biggest democracy may be further isolated economically in its own backyard.

All this may make it harder for India to be the democratic bulwark against China that Washington wants it to be.

While not treaty allies, the U.S. and India have a close strategic partnership in the Indo-Pacific. Just this week, they've been conducting joint naval drills with Australia and Japan. In recent years, U.S. and Indian officials have said their ties are closer than ever. Visiting New Delhi in May, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S.-Indian partnership "is vital, it's strong, and it's increasingly productive."

But the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan may leave this close partner in a difficult situation.

"The credibility of the U.S. is completely down in Afghanistan and that definitely does echo through the region," Rao says. "Being from the region, India really sees this through the lens of this neighborhood."

The U.S. can leave, but in the end, she says, "We have to pick up the pieces."

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As Taliban Take Over Afghanistan, India Fears An Increasingly Hostile Region - NPR

Images of Afghan refugees scrambling to escape Kabul following the Talibans seizure of power will haunt the international community for decades. According to the United Nations, 550,000 people have been displaced in Afghanistan this year alone. In the middle of the Talibans lightning nationwide offensive, between twenty and thirty thousand Afghans are thought to be leaving the country every week.

These numbers are expected to escalate rapidly after the collapse of President Ashraf Ghanis government and a new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is established. Meanwhile, Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has heightened his anti-refugee rhetoric with an eye toward leveraging the situation, assuring his NATO allies that his country will neither house refugees nor act as an intermediary in the resettlement process.

This is an unprecedented but localized humanitarian crisis. If NATO refuses to take a hard line with Turkeys manoeuvring, it will become a global one as well.

Several NATO members have already responded by pledging support for Afghans fleeing the Taliban. Among them, Canada has promised to resettle 20,000 refugees, and the UK is expecting 5,000, prioritising women, children, and religious minorities.

Although these measures have been rightly criticised for not going far enough, they do at least indicate a basic level of commitment to NATOs fundamental values, including humanitarianism and a sense of shared responsibility.

In stark contrast, Erdogan, Turkeys authoritarian leader, has responded to the unfolding crisis with callous disregard. A NATO member since 1952, Turkeys primary response to the unfolding crisis is to build a physical wall along its borders while erecting legal barriers to keep Afghan refugees out at all costs.

Already, a 243-kilometer barbed wire-topped concrete wall is under construction along Turkeys border with Iran to deter Afghan refugees. Just this week, Ankara deployed 750 elite troops to fortify the border.

Erdogans disregard for the safety and wellbeing of Afghan refugees is hardly surprising, given his administrations systematic abuses of domestic minorities, including the Kurdish and LGBT communities, amongst others. Erdogans steady drift towards authoritarianism has been signposted along the way by a consistent assault on human rights.

Just as predictable will be Erdogans willingness to use Afghan refugees as a diplomatic bargaining chip.

For the past ten years, Ankara has treated its Syrian refugee population as a pawn in its diplomatic maneuvers, especially in relation to its European neighbors prompting accusations of blackmail from EU ambassadors.

Ever since Chancellor Angela Merkels stoic response to the 2015 refugee crisis summed up memorably in the phrase Wir schaffen das (well manage this) provoked a blistering domestic backlash, Erdogan has assiduously manipulated his countrys role as a buffer zone to exact endless concessions from Europe.

Although the EU provides billions of dollars in assistance to Turkey to aid Syrian refugees, Erdogan frequently complains that the money goes through aid groups rather than directly to his endemically corrupt government. Make no mistake, Erdogan fully intends to draw on the same playbook and play politics with the Afghan refugee crisis.

Erdogan has perfected the art of operating at the very edge of what other NATO members will tolerate, mixing flagrant breaches of common values with small symbolic gestures of solidarity. Erdogans last minute offer to send Turkish troops to secure Kabul airport just ahead of his meeting with President Joe Biden is a perfect example of the latter.

Having banked that diplomatic credit with Washington, the Turkish administration will now feel it has a freer hand to deal brutally with incoming Afghan refugees while simultaneously threatening to destabilise the EU by channelling unsustainable numbers of asylum seekers towards European shores.

Erdogan intends to blockade his countrys border with Iran in order to prevent a domestic backlash similar to what Chancellor Merkel endured in 2015, while using the growing population of refugees on Turkeys eastern flank to forestall EU action against his regimes many abuses.

Unless NATO and the EU take decisive steps to resolve the current refugee crisis, Turkeys dictator in waiting will purposefully exasperate the suffering of Afghan asylum seekers to finalise his demolition of Turkeys civic infrastructure and, in turn, become an even bigger thorn in the side for his erstwhile allies.

If Europe and its close allies dont manage this, Erdogan will.

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How Erdogan will manage the Afghan refugee crisis - New Europe

The Kanal Istanbul, an under-construction shipping route running parallel to the strategically critical Bosphorus Strait, is fast gaining prominence as a major divisive issue in Turkey, where an election in 2023 decides the fate of right-wing President Recep Tayyib Erdogan, a strongman who has long sought to portray his country as a global heavyweight, but who is blamed for eroding its secular traditions.

The canal, once described by Erdogan himself as a crazy project, is being seen as a lifeline for the leader, who has been at Turkeys helm since 2003 (first as Prime Minister and then as President), but has seen his popularity decline amid a sharp rise in pandemic deaths coupled with economic decline.

Although Erdogan insists that the multi-billion dollar project would bring Turkey economic benefits, opposition politicians and environmentalists have fiercely criticised it, as have others who believe that the canal could threaten a key multilateral treaty that has been the bedrock of peace in the region for nearly a century.

Erdogan, whose nearly two-decade-long rule has been marked by major improvements in Turkeys infrastructure, now wants to dig up a new route through Istanbul connecting the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, which his Justice and Development Party (AKP) is touting as a major new source of income for the country.

In June, at a ceremony to begin the canals first phase, Erdogan told reporters that the project would cost $15 billion, will be 45km long and 21m deep, and would be constructed in six years.

The planned canal will run parallel to the Bosphorus Strait, a natural waterway that separates Europe and Asia, which for centuries has served as a key outlet for Russian ships entering the Mediterranean Sea. Since 1936, passage through the Strait has been governed by the Montreux Convention, a multilateral treaty that allows ships to go across almost free of cost during peacetime, and which tightly restricts the movement of naval vessels.

Turkish leaders say that the new canal, which will run on the European side of Bosphorus, will be safer and faster to navigate compared to the Bosphorus, making it a more attractive option for commercial ships, who will pay to pass through.

Analysts also believe that Erdogan would use the canal to circumvent Montreux Convention, by marketing the mega project to NATO allies as a legally kosher way of sending their warships into the Black Sea to counter Russia, their major geopolitical rival, all while attracting Chinese investment.

What do the canals opponents say?

Some of the projects most fierce opponents are within Turkeys military establishment. In April, 104 retired admirals signed an open letter insisting that the Montreux Convention is sacrosanct and should be left untouched, thus publicly challenging Erdogan. Following this, the president confirmed Turkeys commitment to the treaty, but proceeded to blame the signatories for instigating a coup like the one in 2016, and jailed 10 of the admirals. They were later released.

Erdogans political opponents blame him for using the project as a ruse for diverting public attention away from Turkeys pandemic numbers, soaring inflation and unemployment, and overall economic underperformance. Sure enough, Erdogans AKP fared poorly in a recent opinion poll, its popularity slipping below 30%, as per a New York Times report.

The ranks of those opposing also include Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul who pulled off a landslide victory against Erdogans AKP in 2019, and who could be a formidable challenger in the 2023 race.

Critics have also pointed to investigative reports exposing real estate deals in which buyers from the Middle East have picked up prime plots of land through which the canal will pass through.

Environmental experts, too, have expressed serious concerns. Among their fears is the threat that the canal would pose to Istanbuls water supply system of over four centuries, as a wooded area that houses this system would have to be dug up. Another worry is that the new artificial canal would bring polluted waters of the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara, and ultimately in the Mediterranean.

Erdogan, however, has rubbished these concerns, calling the canal the most eco-friendly project in the world, as per an AFP report. He has also insisted, against expert opinion, that the canal would solve the Sea of Marmaras sea snot problem.

Industry experts have also expressed doubts about the projects viability, given the recent fall in the number of ships wanting to cross the Bosphorus. As per the AFP report, over the past decade, the number of vessels going through decreased from 53,000 to 38,000 a year, thanks to reduced dependence on fossil fuels in some countries as well as a rise in the use of oil pipelines.

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Explained: What is Kanal Istanbul, and why is Erdogan keen on seeing the project through? - The Indian Express

KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's president on Tuesday urged closer ties between the ex-Soviet nation and NATO and the European Union in a speech marking the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's independence.

Ukraine celebrated its independence day on Tuesday with a military parade and massive festivities in the capital Kyiv. Opening the parade, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a strong Ukraine is a country that dreams ambitiously and acts decisively.

Such a country becomes NATO's Enhanced Opportunities Partner; such a country is officially supported by others when it applies to join the European Union," Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine didn't officially become independent until the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991. But like most of the 15 former Soviet republics, it declared its sovereignty immediately after the failed hard-line coup against reformist Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

On Aug. 24, 1991, the Ukrainian parliament adopted the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, reestablishing the countrys independence after more than 70 years of being part of the Soviet Union. Less than four months later, Boris Yeltsin and leaders of other Soviet republics declared the Soviet Union defunct and Gorbachev stepped down on Dec. 25, 1991.

The 30th anniversary of Ukraine's independence came as the country is locked in a bitter tug-of-war with Russia, which in 2014 annexed Crimea and has since been backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and Kyivs efforts to shore up support among Western nations.

Territories may be occupied, but one can't occupy the people's love for Ukraine. One can create a desperate situation and make people get (Russian) passports, but one can't issue passports for their Ukrainian hearts, Zelenskyy said Tuesday. If some people in Crimea and Donbass (region in eastern Ukraine, controlled by Russia-backed separatists) are afraid to talk about it, it doesn't mean they are afraid to think about it. They will come back, because we're family.

The center of Kyiv on Tuesday turned into a large venue for concerts and other festive events marking the anniversary. Thousands of people flocked to the central Maidan square, which over the past 30 years has been a rallying point for Ukrainians.

The popular uprising of 2013-2014, which ousted pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych and triggered the years-long confrontation with Moscow, started on Maidan square.

Delegations from 46 countries and blocs, including 14 presidents, attended the parade in Kyiv. The day before, they took part in the Crimean Platform summit called by Ukraine to build up pressure on Russia over the 2014 annexation of Crimea that has been denounced as illegal by most of the world.

The annexation and Moscows backing of rebels in the east of Ukraine, where more than 14,000 have been killed since 2014 in the fighting between separatists and Ukrainian forces, plunged Russias relations with the West to post-Cold War lows. The tensions rose once again this year after Russia increased troop numbers near its borders with Ukraine, including in Crimea, eliciting international outrage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin published an article last month, describing Russians and Ukrainians as one people and accusing the West of working methodically to rupture historic links between the two neighbors and to turn Ukraine into a key bulwark to contain Russia.

But polls in Ukraine show that the vast majority of Ukrainians support the independence of the country. If a referendum on Ukraine's independence was held this year, 70.3% of the country's residents would vote for it, according to a survey of the prominent Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

The generation of Ukrainians, born both in the west and the east of the country after it became independent, see themselves as a separate European nation that is not tied to the myths of the Soviet era and is indifferent to the Kremlin's pleas about the common past, the institute's director, Volodymyr Paniotto, told The Associated Press.

Paniotto said that Zelenskyy's generation, as well as younger Ukrainians, have a pro-Western mindset and will determine Ukraine's path for decades to come from the Soviet past to a European future.

Firefighter Serhiy Zhadko, 29, who came to watch the parade with his 7-year-old son, told the AP that Ukrainians had to (go through) two revolutions in order to finally choose their path to Europe, but were ready to defend our choice.

Yes, there are lots of problems in Ukraine, theres a war and poverty, but we look forward and not back on the Soviet past, Zhadko, 29, said.

NATO and the EU keep mum about when Ukraine can become a member, despite Kyiv's persistence. The EU only went as far as to sign a landmark Association Agreement with Ukraine in 2014, which stipulated free trade and visa-free travel between the two.

Ukraine's Western allies expect Kyiv to keep pushing reforms, including in the judiciary, and the creation of effective anti-corruption mechanisms that would stem the endemic graft in the country.

Ukrainian democracy is a work in progress which yet to learn the lessons of fighting corruption and to limit the influence of the oligarchs, Ukrainian political analyst and head of the Penta Center think tank Volodymyr Fesenko told the AP.

Western partners directly link the speed of (Ukraine's) integration into Euro-Atlantic blocs with success in reforms and the fight against corruption, he said.

Associated Press writer Daria Litvinova contributed to this report from Moscow.

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Ukraine leader stresses NATO, EU ties on independence day ...

A Ukrainian minister has claimed a passenger jet meant to evacuate people fleeing Afghanistan to Ukraine was hijacked at gunpoint and flown instead to Iran, in an unconfirmed incident that was later denied by his own government.

Ukraines deputy minister for foreign affairs, Yevhen Yenin, said armed hijackers seized the plane at Kabuls Hamid Karzai international airport, where a multinational evacuation is under way ahead of a 31 August deadline for foreign militaries to leave the country set by the Taliban.

Our plane was hijacked last Sunday by [unknown] people, Yenin told Ukrainian public radio. They were armed, including with firearms. On Tuesday, our plane was effectively stolen it flew to Iran with an unknown group of passengers onboard instead of carrying out the Ukrainians.

It was not immediately clear whether Yenin meant the incident occurred on 15 August, as the Taliban entered Kabul, or on 22 August, and why there was a two-day gap between the hijacking and flight.

A Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson later denied the claim, telling the local internet television station, Hromadske, that Yenin was trying to describe the difficulties faced by Ukrainian pilots during the evacuation of Kabul.

Ukraine has evacuated 256 citizens on three flights, the spokesperson said, adding that all aircraft being used to evacuate Ukrainian citizens from Afghanistan were currently in Ukraine.

An Iranian official also denied the hijacking claims, saying that the plane had landed in Mashhad, a city in the countrys north-east, for refuelling before continuing on to Kyiv.

FlightRadar data shows that a Ukrainian plane previously leased to the private Afghan airline Kam Air flew from Kabul to Mashhad on Monday, not Tuesday as Yenin said. Later on Monday, the plane flew from Mashhad to Kyiv, Flightradar data showed.

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Ukraine denies ministers claims of hijacked Afghanistan ...