Blake praises India's Afghan assistance programme

After Chuck Hagel's controversial remarks on India's role in Afghanistan, a top US official strongly backs New Delhi's investment programme and said it has a holistic view of the war-torn region.

After Chuck Hagel's controversial remarks on India's role in Afghanistan, a top US official has strongly backed New Delhi's investment programme and said it has a holistic view of the war-torn region.

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Assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia Robert Blake at a Congressional hearing said," India has taken a very kind of holistic view of what needs to be done there, and they have a $2 billion assistance programme."

"They've hosted an investment conference. They have been a champion of this regional integration vision," Blake said.

He was responding to questions from lawmakers on the contributions of India and China in Afghanistan. He testified before a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs on "Islamist Militant Threats to Eurasia" chaired by the Republican Congressman from California Dana Rohrabacher.

"I think China has taken a far less holistic view and a much more self-serving view, frankly," Blake said.

Though China has an assistance programme for Afghanistan, it's relatively modest compared to the Indians, he said.

"The Chinese have undertaken some investment. I wouldn't want to exaggerate it. I mean, it has not undertaken as much as the Iranians have, for example. In fact we'd like to see them do more in terms of investing certainly in a lot of the regional infrastructure that will be needed, because that would certainly be very welcome, and they've done a lot of that in central Asia," he said.

"But they do not take a position on things like rule of law and things like that. That is not part of their foreign policy," Blake said.