India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is in Kabul, in the first high-level visit from Delhi to Afghanistan amid the peace process.
During his two-day visit, he met his counterpart Afghan NSA Hamdullah Mohib and called on Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
During NSA’s meet with President Ghani, counter-terror and building regional consensus for supporting peace in Afghanistan were the key topics.
President Ghani said the “Afghan Defense and Security Forces are guarantors of stability in Afghanistan and are at the forefront of the war against regional and global terrorism.” Adding, “Afghanistan and India in joint efforts with NATO and the United States will be able to succeed in the fight against terrorism.”
Last year saw three high-level visits from Afghanistan. These include a visit by Abdul Rashid Dostum, former vice president of Afghanistan, Chairperson of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation Dr Abdullah Abdullah, and Senior Afghan politician Ata Mohammad Noor.
India and Afghanistan have had a close engagement with New Delhi being the biggest financial support of the country in the region.
Other than mega infrastructure projects like the India Afghanistan friendship dam, and the Afghan Parliament, India has been helping the capacity building especially by providing scholarships to many Afghan students.
During the COVID crisis, India sent 75,000 tonnes of wheat and 20 tonnes of life-saving medicines and other equipment to Afghanistan.
