Delhi // A flurry of diplomatic activity across South and Central Asia over the past two weeks has underscored rising concern about a power vacuum once US troops start withdrawing next year.
Afghanistan's neighbours - particularly India - are talking tough in the face of possible instability following the troop withdrawal, and now the threat of a proxy war is being openly discussed.
"The bottom line is, Afghanistan does not want any proxy wars on its territory," the Afghan president Hamid Karzai told a news conference with the Pakistani prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in Islamabad yesterday.
"It does not want a proxy war between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan, it does not want a proxy war between Iran and the United States in Afghanistan."
The United States is increasingly dependent upon Pakistan to broker a deal with the Taliban that Washington needs in order to begin its scheduled withdrawal of troops.
Islamabad, eager to become a central power broker in Afghanistan, is working hard to encourage that dependence. By aligning its fortunes so closely with Pakistan, the United States is antagonising India, bringing Indian foreign policy to a crossroads, the former Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar wrote in the Asia Times yesterday.
India now confronts a situation where Pakistan is sure to have major influence in a post-US Afghanistan if sections of the Afghan Taliban are brought into the government.
Part of any such arrangement, Mr Bhadrakumar said, would see a severe rollback of Indian interests in Afghanistan, something that deeply concerns Delhi. Still, India has vowed to become more involved in Afghanistan, despite attacks on Indian interests there by militants.
"In spite of the attacks , we are going to continue our commitment [in Afghanistan]," India's foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao, told the Financial Times this week. "We need to stay engaged."
The Delhi foreign policy establishment is beginning to re-evaluate its relationship with the US; India had always assumed it had a strategic significance for the United States, as a counterweight to China
Instead of focusing on America, said Mr Bhadrakumar, it should have been talking to its neighbours. "Delhi had put all its eggs in the American basket and now needs to activate its regional policies."
Srinath Raghavan, a former Indian infantry officer and now a policy analyst at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi, said that message is now beginning to get through. "At the level of society to society, the relationship is very strong. But in terms of actual politics and policies, I think we still need to be a lot clearer about how we see the United States' role in the world," he said.
This re-calibration of foreign policy will involve a closer relationship with Iran - just as the US tries to co-ordinate international opposition to Iran's nuclear ambitions - Mr Raghavan said.
"Iran is an important country for us, especially vis-à-vis Afghanistan," Mr Raghavan said. "We have worked with them in the past, and we need to work with them in the future. I don't see why we should let the terms of the Iran-India relationship be set by the United States."
How these developments will play out is still hard to predict.
On Wednesday, both Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, were in Kabul to meet Mr Karzai. As soon as they left, the Afghan president left for Islamabad. And last week, the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, visited Saudi Arabia, the first time an Indian premier has visited the country in 23 years.
Yesterday, Mr Karzai seemed to indicate he, along with Washington, had thrown his lot in with Pakistan. "India is a close friend of Afghanistan but Pakistan is a brother of Afghanistan. Pakistan is a twin brother ... we're conjoined twins, there's no separation," Mr Karzai said.
The question now is whether India still views Mr Karzai as "a close friend."
@Email:foreign.desk@thenational.ae
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”