Kulkarni's Speech at SCO Media and Think Tank Forum

Thank you, CIPG, for inviting me to participate in this SCO Media & Think Tank Forum. I extend my best wishes for the success of the SCO Dushanbe Summit.

This year is special because it marks the SCO’s 20th anniversary. It’s special for another reason. This summit is being held against a backdrop of the dramatic developments in Afghanistan.

All of us in the SCO community should extent our best wishes to the people of Afghanistan in this difficult time as they seek to embark on a new road of hope, towards peace, national reconciliation and national reconstruction.

Freedom is an inalienable right of every nation, small or big, poor or rich. Sovereignty of every nation is invaluable and forms a key principle of international law and the basis of global security.

Afghan people have regained their national sovereignty. What they need most today are peace, stability and an end to all kinds of violence.

To achieve this, it’s a collective responsibility of all the internal stakeholders in Afghanistan and also the international community as a whole, especially regional countries.

The new government in Kabul must ensure that no terrorist organization has a sanctuary in Afghanistan and that its territory is not used for terrorists’ extremist activities, targeting any country in the world, near or far. It should abandon extremist policies in favor of moderation. It should guarantee the safety, dignity and rights of women. It should protect non-Muslims and ensure equal rights to them.

Friends, providing humanitarian aid and assistance to Afghanistan is an immediate and common responsibility of the international community. All members of the international community should also shoulder the responsibility of rebuilding Afghanistan’s war-damaged economy, and creating livelihoods for its people. The SCO should play a leading role in this regard because doing all these is mandated by the Shanghai Spirit itself. Therefore, the Dushanbe Summit should urge India, China, Pakistan, Russia, Iran and other member nations of the SCO to involve and implement a common strategy.

I have two specific suggestions in this regard. First, there is insufficient bilateral communication, coordination and cooperation between India and China on the development in Afghanistan, and this should end. The government of India should not continue the mistake of putting all its diplomatic eggs in America’s basket. New Delhi should make common calls with Beijing in helping Afghanistan emerge as a peaceful, stable and resurgent nation. Second, there is unfortunately a total absence of dialogue between India and Pakistan which have so far worked at cross purposes rather than as partners in Afghanistan. As a result of India and Pakistan’s hostility, SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) has become almost dysfunctional. The failure of SAARC has increased the responsibility of the SCO. The SCO’s very first goal as enshrined in Article One of its Charter is to strengthen mutual trust, friendship and good neighborliness between the member states. It’s high time therefore that India and Pakistan realize that hopefully a new era has begun in Afghanistan. This new era has created an opportunity also a responsibility for India and Pakistan to put their acrimonious past behind and work for a new chapter of peace and common prosperity in South Asia to benefit its 1.7 billion people.

Esteemed friends, the 20th summit of the SCO is taking place at a time when the global order is changing very fast. The center of gravity of world economy and world politics is rapidly shifting from the West to the East and from America and Europe to Asia. The days of American hegemony are over. However, for Asia and Eurasia to shape a new peaceful and cooperative and better world order in the 21st century, it’s obvious that several long-standing disputes in the region will have to be settled. A critical necessity for dispute resolution in South Asia is to give less priority to geopolitical factors and greater priority to geo-economic, geo-connectivity, geo-cultural and geo-civilizational factors. This calls for building extensive links of physical, digital, trade, economic, cultural and people-to-people connectivity, linking all the countries in the region. If we view this as our priority, we can easily come to the conclusion that the Belt and Road Initiative launched by China under the far-sighted leadership of President Xi Jinping is highly beneficial to the South Asian region. The dream of building a community with a shared future for humanity should be realized first and foremost in the SCO region. Thank you.