Mounting violence has made rebuilding in insurgency-hit Afghanistan costly and delayed many projects, an Afghan minister said on Sunday in an appeal for help to quell the menace.
"The resurgence of violence in Afghanistan certainly has a negative impact on development in Afghanistan," the country's finance minister, Anwarul Haq Ahadi, told reporters in New Delhi at a regional conference on rebuilding the troubled nation.
"We would rather have development in an environment free of violence ... that will make development less costly for us," Ahadi said at the end of the second Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan.
The group noted that "peace and economic stability in the region is dependent in large measure on the progress in stabilising the security situation in southern Afghanistan."
Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters that the New Delhi conference was aimed at making "countries in the neighbourhood of Afghanistan aware of the stake they have in its prosperity and to provide them the opportunity."
Afghanistan and India have tried to expand trade links following the overthrow of the Taliban, but have been stymied because Pakistan has not granted New Delhi transit rights.
The Delhi conference was attended by representatives of Afghanistan's neighbours, including India and Pakistan. Representatives from Britain, Canada, Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the World Bank, among others, also attended.