This is on the general topic of the US Pak Af summit meeting.
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Ties with India are in interest of Afghanistan: Karzai
Washington (PTI): Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday said "relationship" with India is in the interest of Afghanistan and would continue to build on it despite the strong objections to it by neighbouring Pakistan.
Stating that Afghanistan is a sovereign and independent country, Mr. Karzai said his Government has its own right to decide what is in the best national interest of the country and no one can and none so far have been able to dictate those terms to the people of Afghanistan.
"We fought the Soviets. We fought the British.
We fought everybody else because we wanted to keep this sense that we are independent, our sovereignty. For that reason, we are requesting our friends in Pakistan that we will have relations with India because we are sovereign, and we will have relations with India because it's in our interest," Mr. Karzai said at the prestigious Brookings Institute.
However, Mr. Karzai said
Afghanistan's relations with India will never be against its relations with Pakistan or at the expense of relations with Pakistan.
"It will be a contribution of relations to Pakistan," he said responding to a question from Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official, and co-chair of the US interagency panel that formulated the new ****** policy of the US in March.
Pakistan, in particular its army and the ISI, has been wary of increasing relationship between India and Afghanistan.
In no uncertain terms, its officials have told the US and also the Karzai Government that it does not want Indian presence in Afghanistan as Islamabad feels that such a scenario would be a threat to the security of Pakistan.
Both Afghanistan and the United States have rejected the Islamabad's contention in this regard.
Praising India's contribution in development of Afghanistan post-Taliban, Karzai said:
"India has contributed to the reconstruction of Afghanistan over USD 1 billion in significantly important projects, in transmission lines for electricity, a very important road, the building the Afghan Parliament and all that, a very powerful relationship."
Identifying India as an old Afghan friend for many, many years, Mr. Karzai said New Delhi has contributed massively to Afghanistan in the past seven years.
"It gives us 1,000 scholarships each year for Afghan graduates, 500 graduates in higher studies, 500 vocation trainings. We have had as a result of that, in the past five years, hundreds of Afghans return to serve their country," Mr. Karzai said.
Mr. Karzai is in the US to attend the tri-lateral summit along with his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari and US President Barack Obama at the White House on Wednesday. PTI