Date : 26/04/2008
By Daud Khan
KABUL, April 26 (KUNA) -- A high-level Afghani delegation, led by President
Hamid Karzai, will attend the Fourth World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) in
Kuwait, set to begin April 29.
The three-day summit will be attended by heads of states, governments or
senior officials from 57 Islamic countries.
Talking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on Saturday, President Hamid Karzai's
chief spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said that the president and his delegation
would attend the conference in Kuwait.
"Kuwait is our brother Islamic country and Afghanistan values its ties with
that country," said Hamidzada.
He did not say exactly which day the Afghan delegation will leave for
Kuwait.
Hamidzada said Afghanistan's relations with Kuwait could be judged from the
fact that a high-level delegation had recently returned from a state visit to
that country.
He said the summit as well as the visit of Afghan delegation to Kuwait will
help further cement economic, political, trade and commercial and cultural
ties between the two countries.
He noted the exchange of diplomatic representation at both ends sides helps
them maintain contact and also points to their strong relations.
He said Kuwait is among those countries which are very eagerly playing
their role in reconstruction and restoration of peace and stability in
Afghanistan.
About the summit, he said the Afghan president would focus his meetings
with Kuwaiti officials and heads of states and governments from other
countries on how to bring peace to Afghanistan and to the world.
President Karzai will meet several leaders from Muslim countries during his
three-day stay in Kuwait, he added.
Regarding his country's future relations with Afghanistan, he said they
wanted to further strengthen the ties.
He added that the summit would prove helpful in conveying Afghanistan's
viewpoint to the world on several issues.
Moreover, he said Afghanistan was now recovering from nearly three-decades
of war and it was in need of more help, both financial and political, from the
Muslim countries and the world to stand on its own feet.
The international community and Muslim world contributed a lot to
Afghanistan following the overthrow of Taliban regime in Kabul in late 2001.
Since then, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his team is striving hard
to bring peace and stability to the war-ravaged country and help it to come
out of the morass of insurgency, militancy and foreign interference and stand
on its own feet.
Although the present Afghan government faced with numerous problem in
bringing peace and stability to the impoverished country, the situation of the
Afghan people seems much better than what was seven years back.
The reconstruction activities in the remotest areas of Afghanistan are in
full swing while schools and health clinics are being built there to increase
the otherwise poorest education ratio among Afghan children, especially girls.
Although, security is a big challenge to fully achieve the goals, Afghan
government is determined and steadfast to surmount the hassles in this way.
The first summit of the WIEF was held in Malaysia in 2005. The second
summit was held in November 2006 in Islamabad, Pakistan and was attended by
some 500 political and business leaders from 57 Muslim countries.
The third summit was held in May 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while the
fourth will be held in Kuwait next week under the slogan "Islamic Countries:
Partners in Global Development." (end)
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