India reaffirms support for democratic, secure, and peaceful Afghanistan, calls it 'beloved brother'

New Delhi: President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday sent a special message to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as Afghanistan celebrated its 101st Independence Day. Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan sent his greetings calling the country a "brother", at the special Independence Day event, organised at the Afghan mission in Delhi.

In the message, President Kovind wrote, "Afghanistan and India have a lot in common. Our long-standing relationship has lasted for centuries, further strengthened as we jointly fight enemies such as poverty, injustice, contagious diseases and terrorism."

He added, "We reaffirm our support for a democratic, secure, peaceful, prosperous and pluralistic Afghanistan, and I wish that this anniversary of independence will bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan".

Calling Afghanistan a "close friend" and a "beloved brother", MoS MEA said, "India and Afghanistan are strategic partners. We have extremely good relations, both at people to people level and government to government level."

Highlighting India's "commitment" for Afghanistan's capacity building Muraleedharan said, "More than 65,000 Afghan students have studied in India and they carry the message of friendship deep down to Afghan villages and towns."

He said India and Afghanistan are "contiguous neighbours, it is our PM's vision to see the peaceful prosperous and developed neighbourhood and to ensure greater connectivity in this region" reiterating, "India's support for a united, sovereign, stable, peaceful, prosperous, democratic and inclusive Afghanistan".

Indian envoy to Afghanistan Vinay Kumar was present at Afghanistan's Independence day celebrations at Kabul. In Delhi, celebrations took place at the Afghan embassy in Delhi, presided over by envoy Tahir Qadiry, with Joint Secretary in MEA's PAI Division --Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, JP Singh, being the chief guest and a special video message by MoS Muraleedharan.

Both the Indian and Afghan foreign ministers on Wednesday spoke to each other. EAM Jaishanker in a tweet said, "A productive conversation with Acting FM Haneef Atmar of Afghanistan. Greeted him on Afghan Independence Day. Discussed recent developments in Afghanistan and our bilateral cooperation. Reaffirmed our development partnership and connectivity linkages."

India has been Afghanistan's largest development partner in the region and has built a number of the infrastructure project in the country including the Afghan Parliament.