The leaders of the five Brics countries on Thursday urged all concerned in Afghanistan to refrain from violence and settle the fluid situation in the conflict-torn country through peaceful means and an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue to ensure stability, civil peace, and law and order.

The New Delhi Declaration, adopted at the end of the 13th Brics Summit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted virtually, said: “We call for refraining from violence and settling the situation by peaceful means. We stress the need to contribute to fostering an inclusive intra-Afghan dialogue so as to ensure stability, civil peace, law and order in the country....

“We underscore the priority of fighting terrorism, including preventing attempts by terrorist organisations to use Afghan territory as terrorist sanctuary and to carry out attacks against other countries, as well as drug trade within Afghanistan. We emphasise the need to address the humanitarian situation and to uphold human rights, including those of women, children and minorities.’’

Of all the five heads of state/government, only Russian President Vladimir Putin referred to the situation in Afghanistan in his opening remarks which was aired live. “The citizens of this country have fought for decades and deserve to exercise their right of defining what their state will look like on their own. Meanwhile, we are all interested in Afghanistan ceasing to be a threat to their neighbours... we are interested in stopping migration flows.’’

Putin File picture

He also used the stage to iterate his long held position that the crisis in Afghanistan stems directly from “irresponsible attempts to impose alien values from the outside and intention to build the so-called democratic structures — using the patterns and methods of social and political engineering — without taking into account either historic features and disregarding traditions that other people have followed.

“It results in destabilisation and chaos. After that the authors of this experiment back down leaving those they have paternalised to their own devices and the international community will have to clear out the mess as a result.

“I am confident that we can ensure progressive development of international relations only through guaranteeing the co-existence of states with different political and social systems, their own national interests, spiritual and moral values,’’ he said in a clear critique of the US policy of intervening in countries on the pretext of importing democracy.

On terrorism, the declaration reiterated that it should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilisation or ethnic group.

“We reject double standards in countering terrorism and extremism conducive to terrorism.”