Afghanistan today pressed for operationalising the four-year-old India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Pact (SPA), in which defence cooperation is a major component.
Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekamat Karzai said a meeting between the National Security Advisors of the two countries had discussed the ways to enhance defence cooperation, but refused to elaborate details of the deliberations.
He said Afghanistan's NSA has given its "wish list" to India.
Karzai also talked about a possible visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Kabul for which both the countries were working.
"I had a meeting with Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, with whom host of issues were discussed. We also spoke on the follow up of His Excellency President of Afghanistan's visit to India...Other bilateral issues were discussed. The most important objective was to work out the modalities of operationalising the strategic partnership with India," Karzai said.
He was speaking at an interactive session 'Indo-Afghan relations- The Way Forward' organised by the Observer Research Foundation.
The SPA, signed between Afghanistan and India during Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to India in October 2011, formalised a framework for cooperation in various areas between the two countries. Apart from the political and security component, it also included trade and economic cooperation, capacity development and education and social, cultural, civil society and people-to-people relations.
He said Afghanistan was also looking for cooperation in the field of education and skill development.
Apart from his meetings with the Foreign Secretary and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Karzai also met Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, Union Minister of State for Skill Development Rajiv Pratap Rudy and BJP leader Ram Madhav.
(REOPENS DEL 63)
In his meeting with Rudy, Karzai also discussed about a possible collaboration with India's Ministry of Skill Development and Afghanistan's Ministry of Labour to train Afghans. He said the two sides also reassessed the 1000 annual scholarships that Afghan students receive from the Indian government.
When asked about the current low in the relations between India and Pakistan, Karzai said Afghanistan benefits the most from the friendly relations between the two countries.
"Look at the talks to normalise relationship between Iran and the West. Afghans were happiest because of the development since it would open economic opportunities for our country. Better relations between India and Pakistan will be 50 times beneficial (than normalising of Iran-West relations) to India as it gives an opportunity to trade.
"Now there are specific challenges for us to bring in our goods to Attari (checkpost on the Indo-Pak border and a land route open to trade)," the deputy foreign minister said.
He added that even as Chahbahar port was getting ready, Afghanistan was looking for an alternate sea route from Central Asia from the Turkmenistan side.
Noting that Indo-Afghan bond is a "time and tested" relationship, Karzai said the friendship has been in existence for a long time and is very strong. He also informed that "one of the key achievements" of the visit is India has agreed to host next Instanbul Process-'Heart of Asia' conference. Pakistan will be hosting this year's conference.
The Istanbul Process provides a new agenda for regional cooperation in the Heart of Asia by placing Afghanistan at its center. Fourteen countries, including India, Pakistan, China, Iran and United Arab Emirates are the part of this process.
