Singh in Kabul

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Afghanistan's parliament on Friday that there should be no interference with the country's reconciliation efforts.

"Afghanistan has embarked upon a process of national reconciliation. We wish you well in this enterprise," he said after being given the rare opportunity for a foreign leader to address the Afghan parliament in Kabul.

In his keynote address, Manmohan Singh also backed efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan through negotiations with Taliban-led rebels.

"India will respect the choices you make," he said. "Our only interest is to see a stable, peaceful and independent Afghanistan living in peace with its neighbours."

India had previously been wary of President Hamid Karzai's policy of talking to the insurgents as it feareds that Afghanistan could come under control of a Taliban-influenced government friendly to arch-rival Pakistan.

Afghanistan has long been caught in the middle of the power struggle between India and rival Pakistan, which is suspected of tolerating or even supporting the Taliban.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has set up a 70-member High Peace Council to try and make peace with the Taliban and bring a peaceful end to a nearly 10-year-old insurgency.

The US-led coalition in Afghanistan has also backed Karzai's plan to reach out to the Taliban, who once sheltered al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, but it has insisted fighters must first lay down their weapons.

Securing leverage in Afghanistan

Singh's visit to Afghanistan - the first since 2005 - comes just over a week after al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by United States special forces.

A senior Indian government official said India was interested in hearing Karzai's views on the killing of bin Laden.

While Washington has said the killing of the al Qaeda chief will not affect its mission in Afghanistan, New Delhi has expressed concern it could lead to a speedier pullout of US troops, leaving India exposed to an unfriendly, Pakistan-dominated environment and unfettered militancy.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have for decades sought to secure leverage in Afghanistan and their rivalry gained urgency after the announcement of a gradual US withdrawal. The United States plans to start reducing troop numbers in Afghanistan from July, with all foreign soldiers due out by the end of 2014.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were overthrown in late 2001 despite the presence of 150,000 foreign troops, with record casualties on all sides.

Indian assistance in Afghanistan

India is Afghanistan's biggest regional aid donor and its sixth largest overall. To establish what officials in New Delhi like to term "soft power," India has pledged 1.3 billion dollars of projects that include the building of a parliament and a highway to Iran.

Officials in Islamabad have expressed dissatisfaction with their regional rival's increasingly close ties with Karzai's administration.

"Any development that strengthens relations between India and Afghanistan will enhance security concerns in Pakistan," a former Pakistani general turned military analyst Talat Masood told AFP. "Both countries should be working for stability in Afghanistan instead of using it for a proxy confrontation."

India's embassy in Kabul was hit by two bomb attacks in 2008 and 2009. Seventy-five people were killed and hundreds wounded. Although the Taliban claimed responsibility for the blasts, India and Kabul have blamed Pakistan's military spy agency, the ISI, for attacks on Indians in Afghanistan.

Author: Sherpem Sherpa (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)
Editor: Anne Thomas