Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, right, with Afghan President Hamid Karzai before an official meeting in New Delhi, on Feb. 24. Karzai arrived in the Indian capital on Feb. 23 on a three-day state visit to seek greater trade and investment ties. (Photo: AFP)

New Delhi : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks here on Feb. 24 on India’s continued assistance to Kabul for its reconstruction program and a proposed pipeline project to transport gas from Central Asia to India. The pipeline project envisages linking Turkmenistan with India via Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Karzai, who was on his third visit to India in three years, also held talks with External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh, during which the Afghan leader promised to take up with Pakistan the proposed trade corridor for Indian exports to Afghanistan.

The Afghan president, who was accompanied by a high-powered delegation, including eight cabinet ministers, urged the Indian government to send more Indian teachers and doctors to upgrade social infrastructure in his war-ravaged country.

India, which is among the top six contributors to Afghanistan’s reconstruction, has committed over $400 million as assistance to Kabul since 2002 and is helping it in areas as diverse as infrastructure, education, health care and social welfare. Afghanistan, which straddles South and Central Asia, will be “honored” to join the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), President Karzai said on Feb. 25.

“Afghanistan will be honored to be invited to SAARC and will work to take SAARC to Central Asia to make it a big organization,” he said in response to a question after his inaugural address to the two-day India Today Conclave here.