India independently assessing ISI-Afghan Taliban link: Sources

TORONTO - India has said that it is in the process of independently verifying and assessing a London School of Economics (LSE) report that suggests collusion between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Afghan Taliban.

“We will have to independently assess this report. We will wait for our ambassador in Afghanistan (Jayant Prasad) to give his report on this,” said official sources accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Toronto for the fourth Group of Twenty (G-20) Summit.

They further said that if this alleged link is true, Pakistan needs to take note of it seriously and act to end it.

Insofar as India’s relationship with Afghanistan was concerned, the sources said that ties between New Delhi and Kabul were solid and substantial, particularly on the development and aid front.

They also said that the Indo-Afghan relationship had a humanitarian component to it.

Replying to a question that suggested that while India has earned considerable goodwill from Afghanistan, China has been successful in securing the business, the sources said the relationship should not be looked at in a “transactional or an extractionable way.”

India, they said, has progressed “very well” in several areas.

“India is a power in its own right. It has its interests. We have to strategise; see what we can do that suits India. India’s profile is different to China. There is no need to clone China,” they added. By Ashok Dixit (ANI)