India, Pakistan, China and Russia and several central Asian countries on Friday 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 on Thursdayhad 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.