India, Pakistan, China, Russia discuss Afghanistan situation

NEW DELHI: India, Pakistan, China and Russia and several central Asian countries today deliberated on the situation in Afghanistan at a conference in Moscow, a day after the US dropped the "mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.

Representatives from the leading regional powers reviewed the peace process in Afghanistan as well as the security situation, besides exploring ways to ramp up reconstruction activities in that country.

The conference is also understood to have delved on boosting regional coordination for bringing peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The Indian team was led by Joint Secretary (PAI) in the External Affairs Ministry Deepak Mittal, according to sources.

The conference is an initiative of Russia-China-Pakistan trilateral and, official sources said it is for the second time India is participating in it.

The US military yesterday had dropped its largest non- nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat on an Islamic State tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistani border.

A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, nicknamed "mother of all bombs," was dropped on a tunnel complex of ISIS-Khorasan, a regional affiliate of the terror group, in Achin district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, killing 36 ISIS militants, the Pentagon said.

On whether any Indian infrastructure project has been impacted by the bombing in Nangarhar, the sources here said it will take time to collect detailed information.

India has been a major development partner of Afghanistan and has been favouring an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process for the war-ravaged country.

New Delhi has been maintaining that it believed in close and constructive cooperation among countries of the region for peace, stability, security and development in Afghanistan.

To this end, India has actively participated in several bilateral and multilateral consultations.