December 12, 2001	Wednesday	Ramazan 26, 1422

NEW DELHI, Dec 11: India and Afghanistan’s interim administration on Tuesday intensified talks over cooperation, with New Delhi pledging support to the reconstruction of the war-ravaged nation, officials said.

The two sides also saw a flurry of high-level contacts with a second minister from the Afghan authority, which is mandated to hold office for six months, holding talks here Tuesday with senior Indian officials.

Yunus Qanooni, Afghanistan’s designated interior minister, was the first to arrive here on Thursday in the first of a series of political contacts between India and the multi-ethnic administration after it took birth through a pact in Bonn last week.

On Tuesday, the Afghan regime’s labour and social affairs minister Mirwaiz Sadiq met Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and sought New Delhi’s help to set up medical services and reopen schools and colleges in Afghanistan.

“Sadiq sought India’s assistance in the economic reconstruction of his homeland,” an Indian foreign ministry official said.

Sadiq is a son of the legendary anti-Taliban warlord Ismail Khan, who is hailed as a liberal hero from the western Afghan province of Herat and who supports education and work for women.

Singh said a team of Indian doctors and five tonnes of medicines would soon be airlifted to Herat, bordering Iran, in addition to supplies already being taken to Kabul and to the northern province of Mazar-i-Sharif, officials said.

Defence ministry sources said an Indian military cargo aircraft carrying emergency supplies was set to leave for Afghanistan on Wednesday.

India has also pledged one million tons of wheat and a 100-million-dollar credit line to the Afghan authority.—AFP