India backs Afghan-owned reconciliation process: Khurshid

With Afghanistan set for presidential elections ahead of the US troop drawdown, India today extended its full support for a reconciliation process involving people of the war-torn country.
India will continue to assist the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), which will play an important role in "this year of political and security transition", External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said here.
He was speaking after jointly inaugurating with President Hamid Karzai Afghanistan's first national agriculture university here that was built with Indian aid. India has pledged to invest up to USD 8 million in the Afghan National Agricultural Sciences and Technology University (ANASTU), portions of which are ready while others are being built.

Amid a standoff between the US and the embattled Afghan President, Khurshid praised Karzai's "extraordinary and brave" leadership in nurturing democracy and peace.
"We support your efforts to establish a genuine Afghan- owned, Afghan-led and Afghan-controlled reconciliation process in Afghanistan," said Khurshid, who was on a day-long visit to the erstwhile stronghold of the Afghan Taliban.
The international community, he said, must fulfill its pledges to rebuild the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.

"India will continue to assist the ANSF in whatever manner is possible within our capacities. We have always said that a peaceful, prosperous and sovereign Afghanistan that is capable of defending itself is in India's strategic interest," he said.

Khurshid, who arrived here earlier in the day, said the Afghan presidential elections slated for April 5 were a testament to the fact that democracy had taken firm roots in the country.
"It is also a testament to your (Karzai's) extraordinary and brave leadership over the last 12 years, and the manner in which you have nurtured the plant of democracy in this country," he said.
He hailed the Afghan government's offer to allow members of armed opposition groups, willing to give up terror and abide by the Constitution, to participate as equal citizens in national life.
"It is only the brave and the strong who can offer peace to adversaries. We support your brave efforts," he said.