President Ashraf Ghani acknowledges, appreciates India's support for Afghanistan peace process at Heart of Asia Summit

India has on multiple occasions backed the Afghanistan government when it comes to the Afghan peace process.

File photo

Delhi: Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani during his speech at the Heart of Asia meet in Dushanbe thanked India for supporting the Afghan Peace process.

The President said, "We acknowledge and appreciate the support and commitment of our other partners such as Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE as well as our Central Asian neighbours to the Afghanistan peace process."

India has on multiple occasions backed the Afghan government when it comes to the Afghan peace process. India's envoy to Qatar, P Kumaran, was present at the signing of the US-Taliban pact in February of 2020. External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar joined the start of  Afghan talks in September.

The Afghan President highlighted India's connectivity projects that led to increased trade between the 2 countries. He said, "thanks to cooperation with India, we demonstrated the feasibility of an air corridor."

The India Afghanistan air corridor started in 2017, opening a huge Indian market for Afghan goods. Various Air corridors now connect Afghanistan to 55 different countries making the land-locked country, a land-linked country. India has invested at the Chabahar port that connects India with Afghanistan and beyond.

President Ghani also mentioned TAPI or Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran pipeline. He said, "I’d also like to thank Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and India for agreeing with us to broaden the scope of TAPI to encompass the TAP transmission line, the installation of fiber optics, thereby changing the project into a developmental corridor and the site for the growth of clusters."