After India, Afghan diplomats will now commence the second phase of training in Beijing

Beijing, November 19: Committed towards helping Afghanistan in its efforts to emerge as a united, peaceful, secure, stable, inclusive and economically vibrant nation, India and China has untimely worked towards training Afghan diplomats. In its new series of development, the Afghan diplomats will be trained in Beijing after India.

The phase two of this training programme has been taken place in Beijing in the China Foreign Affairs University. Phase-I of this training programme was done in India from October 15-26, 2018. Afghan diplomats were give comprehensive training on various facets of diplomacy including the tools of diplomacy and evolving global issues. I am sure the Afghan diplomats would have benefitted from the 1st phase of the training programme.

 

It seems very hopeful that in the months to come the training will be able to identify more specific projects which can be jointly done by Government of India and Government of China for the benefit of Afghanistan as desired by the government and people of Afghanistan.

India and Afghanistan are close neighbours as well as strategic and development partners. All the efforts of India as development partner of Afghanistan has been based on the priorities set by Government and the people of Afghanistan. This has been our fundamental basis for any development partnership. The Government of India in the last 17 years has committed a grant of US$3 billion for the development of Afghanistan. These are particularly in the areas of building infrastructure, development of human resources, enhancing connectivity and promoting trade and investment links. Most of these major development projects have been completed over the years.

Since 2017, the next generation of new development partnership has been launched with the Government of Afghanistan through high impact community development projects in all the provinces of Afghanistan. I am happy to inform that through our scholarship and training programme; more than 3500 Afghan diplomats are being trained in India every year.