Afghan Foreign Minister Rassuol in Delhi for talks

Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassuol arrived here today on a three-day visit during which he will hold extensive talks with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on bilateral relations as well as other issues of mutual interest.

Mr Rassuol, who reached here at noon, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his 7, Race Course Road residence this evening.

He will hold delegation-level talks with Mr Krishna tomorrow. He is also scheduled to hold a meeting with National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon before flying back home on Thursday.

This is Mr Rassuol's first official visit to India as his country's Foreign Minister though he has been here before as Afghan National Security Adviser. He had also made a transit halt here in April this year on his way to Thimphu, Bhutan for the SAARC Summit.

Mr Rassuol and Mr Krishna have met serveral times on the sidelines of various events, including on July 20 when the External Affairs Minister had visited Kabul for the Kabul Conference.

Mr Rassuol will be assisted at the talks with Mr Krishna by the Ambassador of Afghanistan in Delhi and the Director General of Foreign Affairs, among other officials. Mr Krishna will be assisted by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, the Indian Ambassador in Kabul, among others.

Briefing mediapersons about the the visit, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vishnu Prakash said the two countries were committed to deepen and strengthen their strategic partnership and the multi-faceted ties which, according to him, had been a factor for peace, stability and progress in the region.

He also pointed out that the two sides have been holding regular consultations at high levels to review and impart greater momentum to their ties.

Mr Prakash said Dr Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai had beeen meeting regularly and there were also regular meetings at the levels of the Foreign Ministers, National Security Advisers, Foreign Secretaries and other leaders and officials.

He said India had been extending unstinted support for the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan and was already the sixth largest donor to the war-ravaged country. He said India's bilateral assistance to Afghanistan was close to $ 1.3 billion and its projects had reached out to the common man in all parts of that country.

He said the Indian Medical Mission had treated more than 310,000 people, mostly women and children, free of cost in 2009.

Mr Prakash said India had been contributing to development of infrastructure including the 218-kilometre Zaranj-Delaram Road and the power transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul.

He said India had also implemented some 50 small, quick-gestation, social and development projects in Afghanistan and a similar number was in the pipeline.

"We are playing an important role in capacity-building. Presently, 1350 scholarships, 675 each by ICCR and under the ITEC programme, are being made available annually in different disciplines to Afghanistan for capacity-building. Post London Conference, given the fact that the agricultural and related sectors are very important to Afghanistan, India has decided for a period of five years, to provide 100 fellowships annually to enable Afghans to pursue Masters and Ph.D. programmes and to 200 fresh graduates for degree programmes," he said.

"As significantly, despite the heinous attacks by forces inimical to India-Afghanistan friendship on our Embassy in Kabul in July 2008 and again in October 2009 and on Indian interests in February 2010, India remains committed to assisting the people and Government of Afghanistan, in their quest for a peaceful, pluralistic, democratic, and prosperous Afghanistan. This approach of India, this assistance of India that is being provided in Afghanistan, is positively reflected in a number of opinion polls conducted by independent agencies where the people of Afghanistan have spoken in very warm terms about what India has been doing," he added.

NNN