'Helping Afghanistan connected to legacy of friendship'

India today said it is committed to help Afghanistan towards peace and stability as this is connected to the civilisational legacy of Indo-Afghan friendship and not to regional security alone.     

"Stabilising Afghanistan is not only integrally connected with our own security, it is also connected to the civilisational legacy of our friendship," India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Hardeep Puri, said at a special meeting of the Security Council on Afghanistan.     

"That is why attacks upon our people and symbols of our friendship only serve to outrage us and redouble our commitment to Afghanistan," he said.     

Stabilisation of Afghanistan must be a central part of regional processes, if it is to regain its role as the crossroads of South, West and Central Asia, he argued.     

 

This includes regional economic processes, such as SAARC and the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan. These benefit the entire region, he observed.     

Noting that hindering these processes affects Afghanistan and the region as well, Puri said: "We must expand, rather than hinder, trade, transit and transport ties, including overland transit and trade. That is the best way of bringing the regional dimension into play in a positive manner."     

India, Puri noted, has contributed more than $1.2 billion in aid to Afghanistan.

India is implementing a wide range of projects to rebuild Afghanistan, Puri said.     

"It includes the widest range of activities; from a cold storage plant in Kandahar to a power transmission line to Kabul. We are building the Parliament Building, while simultaneously targeting community based local projects that provide quick peace dividends, such as schools and hospitals," he said.     

"In all of this, capacity-building is a core element. It is in support of this core task that India has expanded the current allocation of 1000 seats in our institutions for capacity-building and scholarship programmes by 35 per cent," Puri said.