A Pakistani delegate listens to Hamid Karzai at the conference in Delhi. (AP)

New Delhi, Nov. 18: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said peace and prosperity in Afghanistan were of “vital interest” to the region and the world as a whole and described the country’s admission to the South Asian forum Saarc as a “natural development”.

“We look upon Afghanistan not only as a valued member of the South Asian fraternity but also as our gateway to the West,” he said.

“This is yet another link of Afghanistan to what has traditionally been its largest market — India. As Saarc moves forward to developing a free trade area and other shared economic activities, Afghanistan will stand to gain considerably.”

But Singh also voiced India’s concern at the increasing terrorist violence in parts of Afghanistan that not only undermined its security but also thwarted the ongoing development efforts. This “challenge”, he stressed, will have to be dealt with collectively.

The Prime Minister, who was addressing the second regional economic cooperation conference on Afghanistan, underlined India’s commitment to the war-ravaged country’s reconstruction and, in particular, development of human resources.

“Institutional strengthening, capacity-building and training must be stepped up in government, in other organs of democracy such as the legislature and the judiciary and in the economy,” he said. India, he added, was contributing not just through traditional programmes but also through innovative public-private partnerships.

Singh said India was going through a process of transformation and hoped that the 8 to 10 per cent growth rate it wanted to sustain will not be confined to the country. “I am convinced that sustained economic growth in India will have a positive impact on our neighbourhood and vice-versa,” he said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who also spoke at the conference, rejected the notion of Afghans being at war with each other and maintained that whatever happened was the “result of external forces”.

He also rubbished the idea that the Taliban was an Afghan movement but avoided blaming Pakistan or its spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.