new delhi india should have publicly engaged with the taliban before they took over afghanistan former external affairs minister k natwar singh said on wednesday and favoured establishing diplomatic ties if they function as a responsible government going forward in the wartorn countrysingh who was the foreign minister in upai and also served as indias ambassador to pakistan besides holding other senior diplomatic positions said india should adopt a wait and watch approach for the time being but noted that the taliban that have taken over seems to be a better lot than those that ruled there two decades earlierin an interview with pti 92yearold singh said india was quite close to president ashraf ghani who has run away but the situation has altered drastically nowthough the situation is not adversarial even a semblance of friendship has disappeared and that is why the indian government is very careful he addedthe americans have to take a lot of blame because us president joe biden by pulling out his troops made it easy for the taliban to walk in singh saidhis remarks follow taliban insurgents sweeping kabul after the usbacked afghan government collapsed and president ghani fled the country on sunday bringing an unprecedented end to efforts made by the us and its allies to transform the warravaged nation in the last two decadesasked if india should have engaged with the taliban earlier singh answered in affirmative and cited americans example of holding talks with the groupif i was the foreign minister i would have had contact with them i would have gone out of my way and told my intelligence agency to make a contact quietly said the former congress veteran who was the external affairs minister from may 2004december 2005 a few years later he had quit congressciting the example of americans having contact with cuba at guantanamo he said india should have engaged with the taliban as we cant leave the field open to pakistan and chinaon whether like china india should also have engaged with the taliban leadership publicly the former minister said at least at the foreign secretary level india should have kept contact with the taliban publiclychinese foreign minister wang yi had met mullah baradar at tianjin last month and sought to prevail on him to build a positive image and establish a broad and inclusive political structure that suits afghanistans national realitiessingh said the taliban not the present lot but the one that ruled earlier openly had said they were antihindu they are still much closer to pakistan but that doesnt mean that islamabad can dictate terms to them he addedpakistan financed them then americans armed them it is a very complex situation but at the moment we are not a player he saidsingh said india spent usd 3 billion on afghanistan in the last 1012 years building roads hospitals schools and whatever little industries they haveall that is gone with the taliban coming violence has already started they beat up a few people but