Hitting out at Pakistan for blocking Indo-Afghan trade via Attari border for "political reasons", India today said nations cannot become "walls" aborting trade and culture that is as old as written history.Asserting that the "fangs of terrorism" recognise no borders, Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar said, "peace is essential to development; terrorism is anathema to development."
Addressing a meeting here on 'Regional Integration and Prosperity' at the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, Akbar said, "The scale of terrorism and violence unleashed against Afghanistan is of a magnitude that simply does not allow for easy project implementation, efficient delivery of assistance or the rapid inflow of investments into an economy that has huge resources and obvious potential".
He stated that the international community "must ensure security" if it wants stability and economic development in Afghanistan. "We cannot underline 'must' often enough. We abandon this duty at our own risk." India has offered a special facility at the Attari border for Afghan products coming to India via Pakistan, he said at the meet also attended by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
"Unfortunately, this access has been blocked for political reasons by Pakistan. Nations cannot become walls aborting a trade and culture that is as old as written history, and as powerful as the lore etched in common memory," he said amid heightened Indo-Pak tensions.
Akbar said, however, India will continue to work with Afghanistan for assured and reliable access for Afghanistan's products to India's markets through land, sea, and air.
"The full utilisation of Afghanistan's transit rights as a member of WTO will enable greater prosperity. Those who deny transit hurt Afghanistan's economy, with negative resonance for our larger region," Akbar said in an apparent reference to Pakistan.
Talking about India's support for increasing connectivity with Afghanistan, Akbar said, "An exciting and innovative future is taking shape through the recent trilateral India- Iran-Afghanistan agreement in Tehran in May 2016, which makes Chahbahar into a hub for immense economic opportunity".
Asserting that New Delhi's commitment to Afghanistan is abiding, he said it is India's cherished desire to work with the people and government of "one of our closest friends" towards peace, stability, and progress in Afghanistan and in the wider region.
India has dedicated its efforts and resources into bilateral cooperation with Afghanistan, with improvements of internal capabilities and provision of year-round regional connectivity, Akbar said.
"We have already completed significant development projects including scientific water management through dams and infrastructure projects like highways, worth over USD 2 billion. We have recently committed to USD 1 billion more. This is the essence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'neighbourhood first' policy," Akbar said.
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Noting that Afghanistan as the 'Heart of Asia' also offers energy routes such as TAPI and CASA-1000 (Central Asia-South Asia power project) through the "arteries of the region", Akbar said connecting the Afghan economy across the regional compass is the way towards comprehensive development and prosperity in the entire Eurasian region.
"Connectivity, like progress, is not a zero-sum game. It is, in fact, a zero-plus opportunity," he said.
"Better connectivity is not an option, but an imperative. Those who impede connectivity have retrograde objectives," Akbar asserted.
Akbar said prosperity is India's purpose and integration is the means.
"Prosperity in our view must have a primary focus: the youth. We have to rescue the future from tragedies of the past and uncertainties of the present. For this to happen, Afghanistan needs augmentation of its capacities, it needs infrastructure and resources, and most of all it needs connectivity and access to regional markets," he said.
Stating that development is what India does, "rather than merely promise or plan to do", Akbar highlighted that the Zeranj-Delaram road, with the potential to connect Iran to major cities of Afghanistan through the Afghan ring road, was constructed by India.
"Afghanistan's exports have traditionally found their most lucrative market in India, up to Calcutta at the other end of the Grand Trunk Road. Afghanistan is much loved and respected in my country, where from childhood we are brought up on stories of 'Kabulliwala' - the steadfast, courageous and honest friend from Kabul immortalised in the work of our national poet Rabindranath Tagore," he said.
Noting that Afghanistan, historically, has been the wedge between East and West, Akbar said it was the passage for seamless travel between India and Central Asia, West Asia and regions beyond.
"The harmonies of culture and trade created shared values and mutual prosperity," he said.
Highlighting the cultural linkages between Afghanistan and India, Akbar said, "This harmony of outlook and philosophy led to the unique humanitarian vision of Sufi Islam, which still connects the most revered Sufi shrines at Ajmer in my country with Mazar and Chisht-e-Sharif in Afghanistan and Mashad in Iran."
"It is because of this organic link that the poetry of Bedil and Rumi is as revered in India as it is in Afghanistan or Iran. India plans, around the Amritsar Ministerial of the Heart of Asia process, to host an event involving Islamic Sufi scholars from the region," he added.
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