Washington: Expressing dissatisfaction over New Delhi’s decades-old role in the Afghanistan pe-ace process, US President Donald Trump has said he wants the regional countries, including India, Russia and Pakistan, to fight the Taliban in the war-torn country.
To drive home his point, Trump even took a jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a “library” in Afghanistan, saying it is of no use in the war-torn country. Though the US has been pressing India to send troops to Afghanistan, a demand repeatedly rejected by India, this is the first time the US administration has publicly mocked India’s developmental works in the strife-torn country.
Trump in his comments to his Cabinet colleagues referred to PM Modi as an example of how world leaders are talking about their contributions that were nowhere near the “billions of dollars” the US was spending. I could give you an example. I get along very well with India and Prime Minister Modi. But he is constantly telling me, he built a library in Afghanistan. Library! That’s like five hours of what we spend (in Afghanistan),” Trump said.
And he (Modi) tells me. He is very smart. We are supposed to say, oh thank you for the library. Don’t know who’s using it (the library) in Afghanistan. But it’s one of those things. I don’t like being taken advantage of,” he said. Official sources in New Delhi said India has been implementing a range of mega infrastructure projects like dams and highways in Afghanistan. It was also carrying out community development programmes in Afghanistan as per requirement of its people.
They said such assistance would go a long way in making the country economically empowered and stable. Responding to a question, Trump said he wants India to be involved in Afghanistan. Asked if India’s role was going to be security related, the US President said, “I think India should be involved in Afghanistan.
I mean, I’ll give you an example. You can talk about our generals. I gave our generals all of the money they wanted, they didn’t do such a great job in Afghanistan. They’ve been fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years.” Alluding to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Trump said: “Russia used to be the Soviet Union.
Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan.” Without going into details, Trump asserted that he is going to do work out something good in Afghanistan. Responding to Trump’s mockery, Madhav tweeted, “May be Trump should know that while he is decrying every other help in Afghanistan, India has been building not only libraries, but roads, dams, schools and even parliament building. We are building lives, for which the Afghan people thank us, no matter what others do or don’t.”