New Delhi, October 5
“Pakistan is our twin brother, India is a great friend,” Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today as he sought to address Islamabad’s anxiety over the strategic partnership pact he signed with New Delhi yesterday under which India will help train Afghan forces.

In a speech on India-Afghanistan relations, Karzai expressed confidence that the agreement would not upset Kabul’s relations with ‘our brother (Pakistan).”

His statement came even as Pakistan looked somewhat disturbed over the all-encompassing pact that was inked by Karzai and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh yesterday after wide-ranging talks in which they discussed measures to combat terrorism and how Afghanistan needs to bolster its defences to meet any challenge to its sovereignty once the NATO forces complete their withdrawal from the battle-ravaged nation by 2014.

Delivering the 3rd RK Mishra Memorial lecture organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) before wrapping up his two-day visit to India, Karzai said the India-Afghanistan strategic partnership was not directed against any country and was aimed at supporting Afghanistan.

He emphasised that neither India nor Afghanistan intended the pact to be beyond the two countries. Karzai stressed that the pact, which envisages an annual security dialogue and deeper ties across the political and economic spectrum, would enable Afghanistan to benefit from “India’s strength” and help it train its police and youths.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan are extremely strained after Karzai recently accused Islamabad of playing the ‘double game’ by covertly funding militant groups, which carried out attacks in Afghanistan.