External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will deliver an invitation to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit to be held in India in April, when he arrives in Kabul on Monday on his first high-level visit to the country.
Afghanistan became a SAARC member in 2006. Mukherjee will also meet with the speaker of the Wolesi Jirga, Younus Qanooni, and the international relations committee of the Lower House. The minister's visit comes at an important juncture both in terms of political developments in Afghanistan as well as Indo-Afghan relations. The crisis related to the Taliban-fuelled insurgency has reached a critical phase with calls for greater pressure on Pakistan.
Cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been identified as one of the key pillars of