1. At the invitation of His Excellency Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of the Republic of India, His Excellency Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is currently paying a State visit to India (April 9-13, 2006).

2. During the visit, the two leaders held talks on a wide-range of bilateral issues as well as regional and international matters of common interest. They welcomed the progress achieved in bilateral relations since President Hamid Karzai’s visit to India, February 23-25, 2005 and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Afghanistan, August 28-29, 2005, and agreed to take this relationship further into a new paradigm of friendship and cooperation. They affirmed that the time-tested friendly relationship between the two countries, underpinned by historical and cultural ties, had overcome many challenges and were today based on a shared commitment to the ideals of democracy, peace and security.

3. India expressed full support to the goal of a sovereign, democratic and prosperous Afghanistan, which is also necessary for peace, security and stability in the region. It expressed admiration for the courageous steps taken by the Afghan people and Government under the leadership of President Hamid Karzai towards the adoption of a democratic polity, including the holding of the Parliamentary elections and convening of the new Parliament, while addressing the challenge of economic development and reconstruction.

4. President Hamid Karzai thanked India for its demonstrated commitment To Afghanistan by providing more than US $ 600 million for projects in all parts of Afghanistan, in different sectors - including infrastructure, human resource development, and humanitarian assistance. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh reaffirmed India’s continued commitment to Afghanistan’s reconstruction and pledged an additional US $ 50 million under India’s Assistance Programme for Afghanistan. To broaden cooperation between the two countries, three cooperation agreements were signed today in the areas of Rural Development, Education and Standardization in the presence of President Karzai and Prime Minister Singh.

5. In the field of institutional and human resource development, both sides expressed encouragement at the ongoing process of annual award of 500 Scholarships for Afghan students for University education in India And 500 short-term ITEC Programme for Afghan nationals, as announced during Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s visit to Afghanistan in August, 2005. They agreed that this initiative had great potential of contributing significantly towards skills development of the Afghan youth, which could be expected to become the vanguard in tackling the challenge of institution building in Afghanistan.

6. Going beyond the core areas of government-to-government developmental cooperation, both leaders also explored the possibilities of expanding business-to-business cooperation, particularly between the small and medium entrepreneurs of the two countries. President Karzai is also accompanied by a strong business delegation on this visit, which will be interacting with Indian business and industry counterparts from CII, FICCI and ASSOCHAM this afternoon. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh offered to consider extending a US $ 50 million line of Credit facility to promote trade and investment between the two countries.

7. As provided for under Article 11 of the Preferential Trade Agreement signed between the two countries on March 6, 2003, the two sides agreed to constitute a Joint Committee at Ministerial level to review the progress in the implementation of the Agreement, thereby promoting mutually beneficial bilateral trade.

8. Tomorrow, President Karzai will be inaugurating a Festival of Afghanistan in India, which would be displaying traditional Afghan Products and having components of dance, music and cuisine, as a follow-up to the recently concluded MoU on Tourism.

9. Tomorrow, President Karzai will also go to Hyderabad where he will visit the Hi-Tech City, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., the National Remote Sensing Agency and a Rural Development Pilot Project.

10. At the regional level, the two leaders reiterated their vision of Afghanistan regaining its strategic position at the cross roads of Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The need for greater regional cooperation by encouraging trade and people-to-people contact among the countries of the region was emphasized. President Karzai thanked Prime Minister Dr. Singh for India’s strong support for Afghanistan’s Membership of SAARC and pledged to work together with the member countries in all fields to affect greater harmonization of political, economic, social and security policies.

11. President Karzai welcomed that India would host the Second Regional Economic Cooperation Conference for Afghanistan in New Delhi, November 18-19, 2006, with participation of all the regional countries, G-8 Member States and international organizations. This Conference will also have a business-to-business component to promote private sector linkages.

12. Confronting the shared challenges of fundamentalism and terrorism, The two leaders condemned global terrorism as a threat to democracy and declared that there can be no compromise with its perpetrators. India expressed its support to the efforts made by Afghanistan in recent months in tackling the increased terrorist activities in certain provinces in the country.

13. The two leaders reaffirmed that India and Afghanistan, have a Common interest in reinvigorating the past ties and developing a new, Strategic partnership for the 21st Century. The two leaders emphasized the importance of regular high-level exchanges between the two countries for taking this partnership to greater heights. New Delhi April 10, 2006

(Distributed by the Office of the Presidential Spokesperson)