Tuesday, May 31, 2016

California governor Jerry Brown endorses Hillary Clinton

California Governor Jerry Brown is endorsing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton for president.
He said voting for Mrs Clinton is the "only path forward... to stop the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump".

Mrs Clinton's lead in the Democratic race is insurmountable, he said, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has no chance to win.

His endorsement is a setback to Mr Sanders' campaign ahead of the California primary.

"Hillary Clinton, with her long experience, especially as Secretary of State, has a firm grasp of the issues and will be prepared to lead our country on day one," Mr Brown wrote on his website.

"Next January, I want to be sure that it is Hillary Clinton who takes the oath of office, not Donald Trump."

Mr Brown said he has been "deeply impressed" by Mr Sanders' campaign and message of fighting wealth disparity, but Mrs Clinton knows how to push the Democratic agenda forward.

In 1992, Mr Brown sought the Democratic nomination for president against Bill Clinton, not giving up until the Democratic convention.

California goes to the polls on 7 June, with 546 Democratic delegates and 172 Republican delegates up for grabs. - Read More
California governor Jerry Brown endorses Hillary Clinton - BBC

An Open Letter to California Democrats and Independents - jerrybrown

Reconstruction of ruined Darul Aman palace begins in Kabul

An ambitious project to reconstruct the historic Darul Aman palace, which was reduced to ruins in the Afghan civil war, has begun in the capital, Kabul.

The majestic structure was built in the 1920s on a hilltop overlooking the city by King Amanullah, who defeated the British to gain full Afghan independence.

It was gutted by fire, then restored and served as the defence ministry in the 1970s and 1980s. When civil war broke out, it was used as a base by militias and suffered heavy shelling.

The damaged building was a reminder of the country's "darkest days", Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said as he inaugurated the reconstruction project. "Today, we witness returning to the past while building a foundation for the future," he added.

Fundraising for the palace reconstruction began with a government campaign in 2012. The project is expected to cost between $16.5m and $20m (£11.3m-£13.7m) and take three to five years, officials say. - Read More at the BBC
Reconstruction of ruined Darul Aman palace begins in Kabul

Reconstruction of ruined palace begins in Afghan capital | Reuters

Monday, May 30, 2016

OP-ED - Afghans, the Refugees’ Refugees, nytimes

KABUL, Afghanistan — When Ahmad was deported from Turkey early this year, he came to live under a bridge called Pul-i-Sokhta, in the western part of the city. The bridge, which spans a dried-up riverbed, has been an unofficial meeting place for drug addicts for years. But recently men like Ahmad — men who cashed in their lives in Afghanistan for a chance at something better elsewhere, men who were betrayed by fortune and forced to return — have been congregating here, to smoke up, shoot up, pilfer and beg.

On a visit one afternoon last month, it took some time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness under the bridge. Then I saw the bodies splayed over other bodies on top of islands of trash. In between the mounds of wasting men flowed trickles of water carrying garbage and excrement. Ahmad — he wouldn’t give a last name — guessed that about half of Pul-i-Sokhta’s 200 or so residents were recent deportees.

According to the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, there were more than 3.8 million Afghan refugees in 2001. The number had dropped by the mid-2000s, a time of hope that came with the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan. But as the security situation deteriorated, the number of refugees swelled again, reaching some 2.6 million by the fall of 2015.

Most Afghans who flee go to neighboring Pakistan and Iran, but increasingly they have also headed farther west. More than 178,000 Afghans applied for asylum in Europe in 2015, almost four times the number for the previous year, according to E.U. statistics.

Some 5.8 million Afghans have voluntarily returned to Afghanistan since 2002 under a UNHCR repatriation program. But many have also been forced back: Last year, nearly 260,000 undocumented Afghans were deported from Pakistan and Iran alone. - Read More

Afghans, the Refugees’ Refugees

The lost generation: Children in conflict zones - brookings.edu

A catastrophic by-product of ongoing conflicts in the Middle East is a lost generation of unschooled children. These children find themselves, through no fault of their own, not only displaced but lacking the opportunity for proper schooling and thus, denied a chance to learn and develop the necessary skills to become fully functional members of society. This lost generation is the tragedy of our time.

According to a 2015 report by UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency, conflict in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has driven 13 million children out of schools.

Unschooled children are not only a moral challenge, but also one that has negative short-term and long-term consequences both for the refugees, but also for their societies. - Read More

The lost generation: Children in conflict zones


Friday, May 27, 2016

Afghan King & Queen 1963 Visit to U.S. Reel America Preview


Afghan King & Queen 1963 Visit to US Reel America Preview 


King Mohammad Zahir Shah and his queen pay their first state visit to Washington, D.C.; on September 7 the king and U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy issue a joint statement which places special emphasis on the Afghan policy of nonalignment. - More

امروز ۵ سپتمبر ۱۹۶۳، هلی کوپتری شاه و ملکۀ افغانستان، اعلیحضرت محمد ظاهر شاه و ملکه حمیرا را به سطح زمین »قصر سفید« برای یک مسافرت رسمی به ایاالت متحدۀ امریکا پیاده می نماید. جمیعت بزرگی از شدت باران به چتری ها پناه برده اند و لی از دیدار مهمانان منصرف نگردیده اند.

درین مسافرت و پذیرایی صمیانه و عالی مقامات امریکایی و مردم آن، از علیاحضرت ملکۀ معظمۀ افغانستان هم قدرمندی و استقبال گوناگون صورت گرفت. در عکس فوق ملکه حمیرا را حین نوازش دو کودک امریکایی به استقبال وی پرداخته اند مشاهده می نمایید. دخترک امریکایی از ملکۀ افغانستان می پرسد که برعکس دیگر ملکه هایی که وی عکس های شان را مشاهده نموده است، چرا وی تاجی بسر ندارد. علیاحضرت جواب میدهد که: "وی ملکۀ یک کشور فقیر و مردم آن است و تاجی ندارد که بسر نماید". یک نکته درین معنی گفتیم و همین باشد!   امروز در افغانستان از تهداب ویران و آشفته، پول های کمکی و متعلق به پروژه های اقتصادی و اعمار مجدد متعلق به مردم افغانستان، از عرصۀ ۱۴ سال به این طرف، به شاخی باد گردیده و زندگی های نهایت شاهانه ای را برای یک اقلیت مفسد تدارک دیده است گرچه تاجی در کار نیست ولی هزاران چند قیمت آن برای محدودی میسر می باشد.  Read More at the Queen

In historic visit to Hiroshima, Obama calls on the world to morally evolve - latimes

President Obama paid somber tribute here Friday to the devastating human cost of war and pleaded with the world to progress morally as it does technologically, decades after an American warplane dropped an atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima and ushered in the age of nuclear warfare.

Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot on the site of the world’s first nuclear attack, joining with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to chart the devastation and lay a wreath at a memorial commemorating the 140,000 estimated to have died.

In a sweeping address that set aside policy in favor of a rumination on the obligations of humankind, Obama reflected on early civilization and the ancient nature of conflict. He noted that as battlefield weapons and tactics evolve, accompanying norms about using them advances in fits and starts.

"Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us," Obama warned. "The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well. That is why we come to this place."

Obama did not apologize for the nuclear attacks here and in the city of Nagasaki, strikes he believes ended the perils of Japanese aggression and brought about the end of World War II.

But as the leader of the only country ever to have deployed nuclear weapons, Obama said it is the responsibility of those who hold terrible power to face the consequences of its use.

"We have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again. Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness," he said, using the Japanese term for survivors of the nuclear blasts.

The Peace Memorial park he visited Friday afternoon marks the darkest days of Hiroshima, where about 350,000 Japanese civilians and military personnel were living on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the bomb fell.

An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people were killed instantly and tens of thousands more died from the effects of radiation in the months and years that followed. 

Among the dead were thousands of junior high school students mobilized to clear fire breaks in preparation for conventional bombings like those that had hit other Japanese cities in the weeks leading up to Aug. 6. - Read More 

In historic visit to Hiroshima, Obama calls on the world to morally evolve

Cellphone-Cancer Link Found in Government Study

Multiyear, peer-reviewed study found ‘low incidences’ of two types of tumors in male rats exposed to type of radio frequencies commonly emitted by cellphones

A major U.S. government study on rats has found a link between cellphones and cancer, an explosive finding in the long-running debate about whether mobile phones cause health effects.

The multiyear, peer-reviewed study, by the National Toxicology Program, found “low incidences” of two types of tumors in male rats that were exposed to the type of radio frequencies that are commonly emitted by cellphones. The tumors were gliomas, which are in the glial cells of the brain, and schwannomas of the heart.
“Given the widespread global usage of mobile communications among users of all ages, even a very small increase in the incidence of disease resulting from exposure to [radio-frequency radiation] could have broad implications for public health,” according to a report of partial findings from the study, which was released late Thursday.

A spokesperson for the National Institutes of Health, which helped oversee the study, wasn’t immediately available for comment. Earlier in the week, the NIH said, “It is important to note that previous human, observational data collected in earlier, large-scale population-based studies have found limited evidence of an increased risk for developing cancer from cellphone use.”

While not all biological effects observed in animals necessarily apply to humans, the National Toxicology Program’s $25 million study is one of the biggest and most comprehensive experiment into health effects from cellphones.

The U.S. government’s official position is that the weight of scientific evidence hasn’t indicated health risks. In 2011, the World Health Organization said cellphone radiation was a group 2B possible carcinogen. Illustrating the ambiguity of the designation is the fact that certain pickled vegetables and coffee are also considered possibly carcinogenic. 

Current cellphone safety standards are centered around the heating effects from radiofrequency energy, which is the same type of energy that cooks food in a microwave. Tests for safe use of cellphones were designed in the 1990s around this heating effect. The latest findings could lead to changes in safety standards, such as only talking on a cellphone while using a headset and keeping the devices out of pants pockets. - Read More at the WSJ

Thursday, May 26, 2016

President Jimmy Carter - Speech on Afghanistan - (January 4, 1980)



President Carter addresses the nation on the serious implications of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan because the move threatens stability and peace in the region. The President outlines the economic and political restrictions he placed on the Soviet Union as a result of the invasion and calls other nations to stand up to Soviet aggression. -  Speech on Afghanistan (January 4, 1980)
View the full speech here: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archi... - More

Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) - Documentary films - More


سفر برژنف به افغانستان و دیدار با ظاهر شاه ۱۳۴۲ هجری ـ شمسی - 1963



فیلم مستند مناسبات دوستی افغان- شوروی - ۵۳ سال قبل

Film The Friendly Visit Brezhnev in Afghanistan - 1963 -  Read More

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

David Petraeus: Anti-Muslim bigotry aids Islamist terrorists - Washingtonpost

Almost 15 years after the 9/11 attacks, and five years since the killing of the chief architect of those attacks, the United States and the world face a resurgent threat from terrorism. This stark reality should inform the national debate as we prepare to elect our next commander in chief.

As states across the Middle East have collapsed into civil war, Islamist extremist groups such as the Islamic State have exploited the upheaval to seize vast swaths of territory, which they have used to rally recruits, impose totalitarian rule over the people trapped in these areas and plot attacks against the rest of the world.

Few responsibilities that our next president inherits will be more urgent, important or complex than thwarting these terrorist plans, reversing the conditions that have enabled their rise and combating the broader Islamist extremist ideology that animates them.

It would be a mistake to minimize the continuing risk posed by these groups. Although al-Qaeda’s senior leadership ranks have been dramatically reduced, and while encouraging progress is being made against the Islamic State in Iraq and, to a lesser degree, Syria, these remain resilient and adaptive organizations. While Islamist extremist networks do not pose an “existential” threat to the United States in the way that Soviet nuclear weapons once did, their bloodlust and their ambition to inflict genocidal violence make them uniquely malevolent actors on the world stage.

Nor can they be “contained.” On the contrary, from Afghanistan before 9/11 to Syria and Libya today, history shows that, once these groups are allowed to establish a haven, they will inevitably use it to project instability and violence.

Moreover, the fact is that free and open societies such as ours depend on a sense of basic security to function. If terrorism succeeds in puncturing that, it can threaten the very fabric of our democracy — which is, indeed, a central element of the terrorist strategy.

For that reason, I have grown increasingly concerned about inflammatory political discourse that has become far too common both at home and abroad against Muslims and Islam, including proposals from various quarters for blanket discrimination against people on the basis of their religion.

Some justify these measures as necessary to keep us safe — dismissing any criticism as “political correctness.” Others play down such divisive rhetoric as the excesses of political campaigns here and in Europe, which will fade away after the elections are over.

I fear that neither is true; in fact, the ramifications of such rhetoric could be very harmful — and lasting.

As policy, these concepts are totally counterproductive: Rather than making our country safer, they will compound the already grave terrorist danger to our citizens. As ideas, they are toxic and, indeed, non-biodegradable — a kind of poison that, once released into our body politic, is not easily expunged.

Setting aside moral considerations, those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The terrorists’ explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations — telling Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion. When Western politicians propose blanket discrimination against Islam, they bolster the terrorists’ propaganda.

At the same time, such statements directly undermine our ability to defeat Islamist extremists by alienating and undermining the allies whose help we most need to win this fight: namely, Muslims.

I fear that those who demonize and denigrate Islam make it more likely that it will be our own men and women who ultimately have to shoulder more of this fight — at greater cost in dollars and lives.

We should also acknowledge that patriotic Muslim Americans in our intelligence agencies and armed forces — many of them immigrants or children of immigrants — have been vital assets in this fight with radical Islam.

Again, none of this is to deny or diminish the reality that we are at war with Islamist extremism — a fanatical ideology based on a twisted interpretation of Islam. Nor is it to minimize the need for smart, intelligence-driven measures to prevent terrorists from infiltrating our borders and exploiting our immigration policies.

But it is precisely because the danger of Islamist extremism is so great that politicians here and abroad who toy with anti-Muslim bigotry must consider the effects of their rhetoric. Demonizing a religious faith and its adherents not only runs contrary to our most cherished and fundamental values as a country; it is also corrosive to our vital national security interests and, ultimately, to the United States’ success in this war. - Read More 

David Petraeus: Anti-Muslim bigotry aids Islamist terrorists 

Editorial: What Happens After the Drone Strike?

The United States has for years held off targeting senior Taliban leaders while they were insidePakistan’s Baluchistan Province, where Pakistan’s powerful army has long protected them. But President Obama crossed that line by authorizing the drone strike that killed the Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour on Saturday. Calling the killing “an important milestone,” Mr. Obama said he had acted because Mullah Mansour was preparing attacks on American targets in Afghanistan and had resisted peace talks.

The attack was a sign of American exasperation with Pakistan’s duplicitous game of working with Washington to combat terrorism while sheltering the Taliban and its even more hard-line partners in the Haqqani network. The Pakistanis have relied on the Taliban and the Haqqanis to protect their interests in Afghanistan and prevent India from increasing its influence there.

After Mullah Mansour replaced Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader who died in 2013, the Americans and Afghans expected that Pakistan’s security services would persuade him to help negotiate a political agreement with Afghanistan, which remains the only viable solution to the war. Mullah Mansour instead rejected peace talks and stepped up attacks on Afghan and American targets, enlarging the Taliban’s territorial control and further destabilizing Kabul’s dysfunctional government.

The fact that Mr. Obama has now ordered an attack in Baluchistan, rather than the border region where Pakistan has tolerated previous American operations, raises a big question: Does he intend to expand the American mission in Afghanistan, now focused on training and advising Afghan forces and ensuring that Al Qaeda cannot rebuild? - Read More at the nytimes

What Happens After the Drone Strike?


Obamas pick DC neighborhood to move to in 2017

The Obamas are planning to rent a home in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C., after the president's term is up, The National Journal reported Tuesday.

The family is staying in Washington so President Obama's younger daughter, Sasha, can finish high school in the area.

The White House has not said which house the president and his family plan to move to, but their new home will be in walking distance of the ambassadorial residences of Britain, the European Union, France, Iceland and Portugal.

Obama was reportedly considering Kalorama or Embassy Row, but decided on Kalorama, the neighborhood just east of Massachusetts Avenue NW.

Obama will be the first president to stay in D.C. after his presidential term since Woodrow Wilson in 1921, according to DCist. - Read More at thehill

Obamas pick DC neighborhood to move to in 2017

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

SPECIAL INTERVIEW: Khalilzad Discusses Afghanistan Post-Bonn Conference


Khalilzad also discusses his latest book "The Envoy" and the role he played in helping to build up Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. - Read More

SPECIAL INTERVIEW: Khalilzad Discusses Afghanistan Post-Bon


Monday, May 23, 2016

India, Afghanistan and Iran Sign Deal for Transport Corridor - WSJ

Iran’s Chabahar port will be focal point of trade route that bypasses Pakistan

NEW DELHI—Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani signed an agreement with Tehran on Monday for a transport corridor designed to open up a new route to Afghanistan via the Iranian port of Chabahar, circumventing Pakistan.

Chabahar port, which India will partially develop just across the border from Pakistan’s Chinese-run Gwadar port, is the centerpiece of the corridor. India and Iran on Monday signed an agreement in Tehran that allows New Delhi to begin work on Chabahar after a delay of more than a decade.

“To carve out new routes for peace and prosperity is our common goal,” Mr. Modi said. “Afghanistan will get an assured, effective and a more friendly route to trade with the rest of the world,” he said, in a veiled criticism of Pakistan, with whom both countries share turbulent ties and whose location in between them has stymied trade.

Mr. Modi said the deal could “alter the course of history of this region” and help India, Afghanistan and Iran “to eventually build what we all desire and deserve—a friendly and healthy neighborhood.”

The agreements come as Beijing is building a $46 billion economic corridor with Gwadar as its focal point, potentially redrawing the region’s geopolitical map. India opposes construction of part of that corridor in an area of the disputed Kashmir region that is governed by Pakistan but claimed by India.

While Pakistan’s relations with the U.S. and Afghanistan have grown strained, its ties with China remain strong, raising hackles in New Delhi, where Gwadar is seen as a symbol of that partnership.

“Today, the nature of global engagement requires an attitude more suitable to this century, not the mindset of the century gone by,” Mr. Modi said, echoing a statement he made on a 2014 visit to Japan where he criticized some countries’ “expansionist mindset.” “Today, the watchwords of international ties are trust, not suspicion; cooperation, not dominance; inclusivity, not exclusion,” he said Monday.

While China is building and will run Gwadar, India’s engagement in Chabahar is much smaller. Under the deal with Iran, New Delhi will invest $200 million to develop two terminals and five berths at Chabahar, India’s Foreign Ministry said.

The corridor from Chabahar will run to Zaranj, an Afghan border town already connected by a 135-mile, Indian-built highway to Delaram, to the northeast. Development of the route is expected to strengthen ties between New Delhi and Kabul—a source of concern in Islamabad, which fears being encircled by India. - Read More at the WSJ

Afghan Government Secretly Fosters Taliban Splinter Groups - WSJ

Kabul seeks to sow discord by supporting faction of rebel group

SHINDAND, Afghanistan—The Afghan government is giving financial and military support to a breakaway Taliban faction, according to some Afghan and U.S. coalition officials, in an effort to sow rifts within the insurgency and nudge some of its leaders toward peace talks.

The effort comes as the U.S. military conducted an airstrike inside Pakistan that American officials said likely killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, potentially setting the stage for another leadership struggle that could fragment the group further in the coming days. The Taliban, which usually respond promptly to requests for comment, hadn’t issued a statement by late Sunday.

Senior Afghan and U.S. diplomatic, military and intelligence officials, including several who had roles in creating the program, described its details and said that resources provided by the U.S. were used to support it.

The Afghan intelligence agency is leading the drive to recruit new Taliban assets, Afghan and U.S. officials said. The agency relies on the U.S. for most of its funding and is still mentored by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA declined to comment for this article.

Despite billions invested in reconstruction, Afghanistan still relies on aid for most of its funding and the U.S. pays more than $4 billion a year for its security forces.

The program’s goal, Afghan and U.S. officials said, is to exploit divisions that emerged after the Taliban’s longtime leader, MullahMohammad Omar, was revealed last July to have been dead for years, a disclosure that stunned local Taliban leaders and threw the group into disarray.

It targets southern Zabul, Helmand, eastern Paktika and western Farah and Herat provinces, where groups of insurgents and their commanders, unhappy with the Taliban’s leadership, have defected to a commander named Mullah Mohammad Rasool.

Afghan and U.S. officials said Mullah Rasool’s faction and other fractious Taliban groups have been receiving cash, ammunition and weapons from the Afghan government.

A spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said there is no alliance between any Afghan agency and any Taliban group. “The Afghan government does not support any Taliban groups and we categorically reject such claims as baseless,” said the spokesman, Sayed Zafar Hashemi. - Read More at the WSJ

WHS: UN humanitarian summit to 'shape a different future,' Ban tells thousands at opening ceremony

23 May 2016 – At the opening of the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) in Istanbul today, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined the President of Turkey, relief activists and international celebrities to urge the global community to shape a different future for the world.

“We are all here because global humanitarian action is unprecedentedly strained,” Mr. Ban told thousands of participants attending the opening ceremony, which featured creative performances and inspiring words by renowned stars including Forest WhitakerAshley Juddand Daniel Craig.

“I proposed this Summit four years ago out of concern for rising humanitarian needs and declining political will. Today, the urgency has only grown,” the Secretary-General stressed

As part of a moving spectacle that emulated dust storms and earthquakes, and projected images of authentic footage inspired by personal human stories, Malian singer Inna Modja kicked off the historic Summit with a soulful poem.

The United Nations estimates that a record number of people – 130 million – currently need aid to survive. More people have been forced from their homes than at any time since the end of the Second World War.

“This is a 21st century United Nations gathering,” the Mr. Ban said describing the Summit, adding that its Agenda for Humanity, the document he recently issued to guide discussions and action, is based on three years of consultations with 23,000 people in more than 150 countries.

Over the next two days in the Turkish capital, WHS is bringing together stakeholders who have a vested interest in improving the global humanitarian system, including more than 65 Heads of State and Government as well as leaders from the public and private sectors.

The UN chief underlined that the world is looking to them for commitments to five core responsibilities: -  Read More
WHS: UN humanitarian summit to 'shape a different future,' Ban tells thousands at opening ceremony

ایران، افغانستان و هند موافقت‌نامه توسعه چابهار را امضا کردند

در جریان سفر رئیس جمهوری افغانستان و نخست وزیر هند به ایران، سه کشور موافقت‌نامه اقتصادی سه جانبه توسعه بندر چابهار در جنوب شرقی ایران را امضا کردند.
هند می‌خواهد با کمک توسعه این بندر، صادرات و دسترسی خود به بازارهای افغانستان و آسیای میانه را افزایش دهد.
طبق این قرارداد یک شرکت هندی حدود ۲۰۰ میلیون دلار در بهبود و توسعه بندر چابهار سرمایه گذاری می‌کند.

محمد اشرف غنی رئیس جمهوری افغانستان این توافق را گامی برای توسعه همکاری های منطقه‌ای خواند: "اول ملت افغانستان از ملت‌ها و دولت‌های ایران و هند ابراز امتنان می‌کند که به ثبات آینده افغانستان باورمند هستند. بعضی مردم در منطقه صادراتشان تروریسم است، صادرات ما سه مملکت امید، باورمندی و همکاری است. آسیای مرکزی، اروپا و چین همه شامل این دیدگاه و اراده مشترک بوده می‌تواند."

حسن روحانی، رئیس جمهوری ایران نیز گفت که این توافق سه جانبه و توسعه بندر چابهار بر علیه هیچ کشوری نیست، بلکه در راستای توسعه اقتصادی منطقه است.

نارندرا مودی، نخست وزیر هند، این قرار داد را گامی مثبت برای امنیت و ثبات و توسعه اقتصادی منطقه عنوان کرد و آن را علیه آنهایی خواند که به تعبیر او اهدافشان بمب‌گذاری و کشتن بیگناهان است.

اهمیت چابهار برای افغانستان

موافقت‌نامه چابهار که خواهان سرمایه‌گذاری مشترک کشورها است، انتظار می‌رود به صورت قابل ملاحظه نقش تجارتی بندر چابهار را افزایش داده و هند را از طریق ایران و افغانستان به آسیای میانه وصل کند.

موافقت‌نامه سه جانبه بازرگانی و ترانزیتی چابهار در سالهای ۲۰۱۵ و ۲۰۱۶ توسط تیم‌های فنی مرکب از هیات‌های امور اقتصادی، متخصصان حقوقی و کارشناسان فنی سه کشور تهیه شده است.

افغانستان امیدوار است که با افتتاح بندر چابهار، این کشور گذرگاه انتقال اموال تجارتی برای کشورهای محاط به خشکی آسیای میانه باشد و از این طریق سالانه میلیون‌ها دلار درآمد داشته باشد.
این کشور اعلام کرده که بندرچابهار و گذرگاه افغانستان به کشورهای آسیای میانه، باعث خواهد شد که فرصت برای سرمایه گذاری هند بر روی زیربناهای حمل و نقل افغانستان مهیا شود.
طرح چابهار در کنار ایجاد سهولت میان افغانستان و هند به گفته منابع افغانستان، می‌تواند این کشور را به بازارهای جدید در خاور میانه، اروپا و آمریکا وصل کند.

افغانستان بندر چابهار را مسیر بهتر و ارزان‌تر برای واردات و صادرات کالاها نسبت به بندر کراچی پاکستان و بندر عباس ایران می‌داند که اکنون افغانستان برای مبادلات کالا بیشتر به این بنادر وابسته است.
بندر چابهار در مقایسه به بندر عباس و بندر کراچی به ترتیب ۹۰ کیلومتر و ۷۰۰ کیلومتر به مرکز افغانستان نزدیک تر و این فرصت را براى بازرگان‌های افغانستان فراهم مى‌کند که نسبت به بنادر دیگر اموال خود را ٢٠ درصد زودتر صادر کنند. - Read More