Afghanistan on Thursday 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.
Mr. 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,” Mr. 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, Mr. 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.
