Taliban regime in Afghanistan seeks Indian support to complete the development projects it had started in the country. Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said it on Sunday.
“We are hopeful that with the upgrading of the diplomatic mission, we will move forward from the humanitarian aspect to development aspects. And in that area, our priority that we’ve also conveyed to the Indian side is that of the completion of some of the incomplete projects that India has done, as a first step,”
The Shahtoot Dam in Kabul is one of the projects that the Taliban wanted India to complete. “India has a lot of different projects, and they are incomplete. And we have urged them to complete those because if they are not completed, all of it will go to waste,” he added.
Balkhi said it in an interview with a popular indian media a day before the first anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
August 15 has been declared a holiday but celebrations by the Taliban regime will be low-key, restricted to an official media event. The main events may take place on September 1, the day the last foreign troops left Afghanistan last year.
India recently reopened its embassy in Kabul, a year after it was shut down and all personnel evacuated in the wake of the August 15, 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
On Saturday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said in Bengaluru that India’s decision to restart the mission was to help the Afghan people by providing humanitarian and medical assistance and that India wished to help in the area of vaccine development.
India’s development assistance to Afghanistan is estimated to be worth well over $3 billion across 20 years, including key roads, dams, electricity transmission lines and substations, and schools and hospitals.
