Afghanistan president thanks India for support on the peace process, connectivity at Heart of Asia conference

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

He 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."

New Delhi has multiple times backed the Afghan govt when it comes to the Afghan peace process. 

India's then 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 Intra-Afghan talks in September.

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

India-Afghanistan air corridor started in 2017 opened a huge Indian market for Afghan good. 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 Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran (TAPI) 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 fibre optics, thereby changing the project into a developmental corridor and the site for the growth of clusters."