{"id":27915,"date":"2019-01-03T16:22:32","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T16:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27915"},"modified":"2019-01-03T16:22:32","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T16:22:32","slug":"india-responds-to-trumps-afghan-library-dig-at-pm-modi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27915","title":{"rendered":"India responds to Trump’s ‘Afghan library’ dig at PM Modi"},"content":{"rendered":"
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India<\/a>\u00a0has rejected US President Donald Trump<\/a>‘s comments mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan<\/a>, saying New Delhi has provided $3bn in development assistance to the war-torn country.<\/p>\n

The US president on Wednesday took a swipe at what he said were Modi’s frequent comments on building the library: “You know what that is? That’s like five hours of what we spend.<\/p>\n

“And we’re supposed to say, ‘Oh, thank you for the library.’ I don’t know who’s using it in Afghanistan,” Trump said.<\/p>\n

A statement provided to AFP news agency by government sources in New Delhi said: “India plays a significant role as a development partner,” in Afghanistan, with projects aimed at achieving “a tangible improvement in the lives of its people”.<\/p>\n

As the “largest donor in the region”, New Delhi has helped with infrastructure projects, humanitarian assistance and economic development, the statement said.<\/p>\n

The projects include a 218-kilometre (135-mile) road, a dam providing irrigation to farmers and training programmes for more than 3,500 Afghans in India.<\/p>\n

New Delhi has also provided 1.1 million tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan as well as a 400-bed children’s hospital built in 1972 and renovated after the fall of the Taliban in 2002.<\/p>\n

Trump also\u00a0<\/span>said in the cabinet meeting that the former Soviet Union, which invaded\u00a0<\/span>Afghanistan in 1979, was “right to be there” because “terrorists were\u00a0<\/span>going in to Russia” at that time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Afghan government on Thursday has demanded an explanation following the comment, Afghanistan’s Presidential Palace said.<\/p>\n

The palace said in a statement that the request for clarification was lodged through official diplomatic channels.<\/p>\n

The statement added that the Afghan government understands that, “there is a difference between remarks and the official policy of a country”.<\/p>\n

Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, the son of a former leader who fought against the invasion, tweeted that the “Soviet occupation was a grave violation of Afghanistan’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty.”<\/p>\n

Trump also said that currently Russia, Pakistan and India should be intervening in Afghanistan, not the US.<\/p>\n

“Why are we there 6,000 miles away?” he said. Some 14,000 US troops are currently stationed in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India\u00a0has rejected US President Donald Trump’s comments mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, saying New Delhi has provided $3bn in development assistance to the war-torn country. The US president on Wednesday took a swipe at what he said were Modi’s frequent comments on building the library: “You know what that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}