Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the visiting Afghan President Ashraf Ghani held crucial bilateral talks here on Wednesday wherein the status of the peace process in the war-ravaged country came up for deliberations.
“Strategic partners and a valued neighbour! PM Narendra Modi warmly received President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani at the Hyderabad House ahead of the bilateral talks,” External Affairs Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar tweeted.
The two leaders reviewed and positively assessed the progress of the multi-faceted India-Afghanistan strategic partnership. They expressed satisfaction at the increase in bilateral trade that has crossed the US $ 1 billion mark. The two leaders also appreciated the successful conclusion of the India-Afghanistan trade and investment show in Mumbai from September 12-15, 2018 and expressed determination to strengthen connectivity, including through Chabahar port and Air-Freight Corridor. It was agreed to deepen the New Development Partnership in the areas of high impact projects in this field of infrastructure, human resources development and other capacity building projects in Afghanistan.
President Ghani briefed the Prime Minister on initiatives by his government towards peace & reconciliation and also in confronting the challenges of terrorism and extremism imposed on Afghanistan and its people.
The Prime Minister reiterated India’s support to an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace and reconciliation process that would enable Afghanistan to continue as a united, peaceful, inclusive and democratic nation and emerge as an economically vibrant country. The Prime Minister emphasized India’s unwavering commitment to support the efforts of the Government of Afghanistan to this end, as also for the security and sovereignty of Afghanistan. He unequivocally condemned terrorist attacks and violence in Afghanistan which have caused immense loss of precious human lives and expressed solidarity with the people and national defence forces of Afghanistan in their fight against terrorism.
