Remarks by President Ghani in a Media Interaction with Journalists in New Delhi
New Delhi, India
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate
A very good morning to you.
First of all, let me express my deepest sympathies to the people of Nepal. It is really close and personal
for me because from 1991 I have been going to that beautiful country, and when I was at the World
Bank, I did not confined myself flying or driving twice, I walked for a week to see various development
projects, to stay on the roofs of villages and to interact intensely. It is a people that have so much in
common with us Afghans. And at this moment of their sorrow, our hearts go to them. We had also a
land slide in our province of Badakhshan, and again sorrow binds us together at this moment. Thank
God, the scale is not as of Nepal.
I begin with natural disaster because in today’s world, South Asia is to rise to the challenge of
cooperating on natural disaster management. We must put in place a system that allows all our
strengths to come together and none on our weaknesses. We do not have proper warning systems yet,
we do not have advance warning systems. The SAARC Satellite, the Prime Minister Modi is initiating, I
think has enormous implications for enabling us to work together, so it is a topic that I hope SAARC will
take in earnest.
I like to begin with thanking the President of India, the Vice-President of India and Prime Minister Modi
for a remarkable state visit. A million ties across a millennium or several millenniums bind us. This visit
has resulted in a forward outlook where those ties that already bind, will be expanded, enhanced for the
sake of peace, prosperity and stability in this region of ours that on the one side has suffered so much
and on the other side has such immense potential.
I would also like to again thank Tagore for giving us a distinctive brand. Kabuliwala has done more for
Afghanistan than a billion dollars of advertisements could do. And I am delighted that I have been told
that a new version of the film has been made and prepared with some of scenery actually set in
Afghanistan. I hope that a new generation of Indians will experience Afghanistan close and would be
able to expand it.
Afghanistan has five circles of foreign policy, the neighborhood; the Islamic World; Europe, United
States, Canada, Australia and Japan; Asia; the world of investors and provide us assistance.
India uniquely fits in four of these. It is our neighbor that expression that we are using is from India to
Azerbaijan and Russia. It is the second largest Muslim country on earth. And particularly with
Afghanistan, the shrines of the Chishti Order to which Akbar adhered and sought the birth of Jahangir
originates in Chisht Sharif in Herat. The haunting statues of Buddha on the one side and the immense
network of shrines in India are a tribute to the two-way traffic that has bound us to the ages.
Asia is on the process of becoming a continental economy. India is a shaper of the globalization to come.
We have had globalization 01 dominated by European colonialism, globalization 02 up to the fiscal crisis
of 2008 driven by the Atlantic and the Pacific, where in the third phase and the fourth phase hopefully
would be a world driven by much more equality, and in this version, India is a shaper of the events to
come.
Asia is likely to have its 1869 moment. 1869 is a moment for two reasons, 1) the Suez Canal was opened,
2) the US became a continental economy, the Trans-Atlantic and the Trans- Pacific railway were joined.
A header to a geographic space and political space, became an economic space.
Afghanistan is not just metaphorically at the heart of Asia, but physically in the heart of this Asia to
come, and hence our position of our prosperity is not national but regional in Asian wide and global.
And in our fifth circle, I would like to thank the Indian people, the India government and the India
parliament. India is the fourth largest contributors of assistance with Afghanistan. Over $2.2 billion of
assistance has been provided and this is administered with very little overhead in comparison. So, some
of the major infrastructure, the province of Nimroz was fundamentally transformed from a marginal
ecological fragile environment, thanks to the Indian investment in our road simultaneously with Iranian
investment on a bridge, today that province generates one of the largest customs revenues in
Afghanistan and there is more to come with the nature of the changes that we articulate.
But, equally significant, we look to Indian private sector to be a driver of Afghanistan’s future prosperity.
We have a number of key assets in Afghanistan. The first of our assets is our location. Until the advent of
British colonialism, all roads led to and from Central Asia, West Asia and South Asia cannot simply
communicate with each other over land except to a stable and prosperous Afghanistan. And now East
Asia, which again was very much part of the Silk Route, is joined to this prospect, we are looking at the
Wakhan corridor, our 60 mile common border with China as a key source of connectivity. But, location
which has been a disadvantage to Afghanistan, is likely to become our greatest advantage. We envisage,
first, hundreds of millions of tons and then hopefully billions of tons of cargo moving through us.
Pipeline that will bring the surplus of energy of Central Asia to South Asia, fiber optics, pipelines both
involving in oil and gas, railways, roads, but the most significant thing of course will be human
connectivity. I am delighted to acknowledge here that we have 13000 Afghan students studying in
Indian universities. And again to thank the government of India for renewing the program of
scholarships for another five years. This human capital is going to be crucial to turning our special
advantage into an economic advantage and one of cooperation.
Our second asset is our water. We provide the head-water for every one of our neighbors. Only 10% of
this is harnessed to 1960s technology, and there is immense areas of cooperation in terms of changing
environment, and if there is 1 degree of global warming, some of the provinces among our neighbors
will become desert. If there is 2 degrees of global warming, there would be serious relocation
implications. So, a coherent orchestrated policy towards regional water management and learning
lessons become crucial. We always steward and we must go from flood irrigation to drip irrigation as the
basic goal.
Our third major asset is our mineral resources. 1/3 of our mineral resources that have been mapped, are
estimated to be worth 1 to 3 trillion dollars. Once the mapping is completed, the full natural wealth of
Afghanistan will become, in a decade to two we become the largest producer of copper in the world, the
largest producer of iron in the world, a very significant player in the global gold market, a driver of
construction material, and we have 14 of the 17 earth rare material.
So, this Afghanistan is a very different Afghanistan than one ragged by poverty and deprivation. But, on
our metal resources what we are mostly focused, is to avoid the curse of platinum. We do not want to
become a rent-dependent economy. Our gas is looking very good; our oil is becoming to look promising.
But what we need is to first develop the institutions so the generations to come would live from this
wealth not that we waste it.
Then, the most significant asset that we have is our people. We are an entrepreneurial people. Begging
is very rare among us. We are poor, but dignified. And 36 percent of our pollution living below poverty,
that is our fundamental challenge. Of course, you will ask question on security, I do not want to
elaborate.
But our relations with India have six dimensions. First, we will work together to make the Asian
continental economy a reality. Two, the threat of terror as a changed ecology is where we coordinate in
terms of information and policies to ensure that regional peace and prosperity and cooperation is at the
forefront. Third, Indian assistance is generally appreciated and we are looking a closer linkage between
aid and trade. Fourth, is India’s investment, and today I am devoting the day to interacting with the
captains of industry and business to be able to move forward. Fifth, is human capital, and sixth is
technology.
India has borne the cost of development, research and development of a technology that can be
thoroughly through poor. And these areas have been the focus of our discussions, I am very satisfied
with the nature of the discussion, and I would like to thank the Indian media for the interviews they did
with me prior to the visit.
I think the rules are that I will take three questions, two from our Indian colleagues and one from
Afghans.
Question and answers session:
Reporter:
Mr. President, this is Vijay and I am consulting editor of a newspaper from the State of Maharashtra.
Excellency, before you left Afghanistan there was a threat by the Taliban that they start their spring
actions from Friday, and also there was attack in Kunduz. In this situation, how do you look at the talks
with the Taliban which has been talked about for a long time. Is it possible, and how are you going to
deal from security point of view with these threats coming to you? Thanks you.
President:
Thank you. Well I have very fun memories of Maharashtra, please give my regards to Bombay and other
locations.
Insecurity has four drivers – global terrorism, criminal economic networks, Taliban and related groups
that coach their differences in political terms, and irresponsible armed groups that, both feel they are
allied to the state and yet challenge the citizens. During 2005 to 2014, the primacy may have been in the
hands of the Taliban and related elements driving insecurity. What I would argue that the fundamental
shift this year is that global terrorist networks have changed and have focused both from a prospective
of narrative and of position of opportunity to target us.
Pakistan operation in North and South Waziristan brought about what I call the displacement effect. A
very significant number of these networks relocated and targeted us, and simultaneously event in Syria,
Iraq, Yemen and Libya, brought about another realignment from Daesh. So, our primary driver now is
that today the Afghan state is fighting on behalf of all forces of stability. Every single one of our
neighbors is threatened by these networks as is the world at large.
The war is imposed on us. The people of Afghanistan and the armed forces of Afghanistan are ready to
confront it.
The second issue is peace. Whoever has a political reason to disagree with the legitimate government
must be engaged politically. This is not a question of taste, it is an imperative. We have shown through
the formation of the Government of National Unity that we strive for an inclusive policy, not one of
exclusion. Authority in our hands in not instrument for divide and rule, but gathering and uniting. So if
there are grievances, the place ultimately the table.
What is the difference between the Taliban and the international networks of terror? The latter has no
place in our future policy. If they are produced by conditions in their countries or by ideas of global
destabilization, then we must deal with them outside the framework of Afghan political processes. The
Afghan constitution has a place for every Afghan. But, the other networks are challenging all of us. So
we will focus.
The last thing I wanted to, was to become a war president. But the third responsibility of Afghan
President is to be the Commander in Chief. It is imposed on me, I fulfill it with honor and I fulfill it with
full determination. Whoever challenges us this year, is going to find out that the Afghan people have full
will to stand behind and with their legitimate government, and be led properly and in organized fashion
and the end of it will come much stronger.