New Delhi: In the second ministerial visit in two months, Afghanistan's industry and commerce minister Alhaj Nooruddin Azizi arrived in India on an official visit aimed at strengthening economic ties, amidst the Taliban’s decision to freeze trade relations with neighbouring Pakistan.

“A warm welcome to Afghan Industry and Commerce Minister, Alhaj Nooruddin Azizi, on his official visit to India. Advancing bilateral trade and investment ties is the key focus of the visit,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal posted on X.

The Afghan minister visited the India International Trade Fair on Wednesday (November 19), where he toured various stalls, including those run by Afghan businessmen. He interacted with Afghan traders in India to discuss market access and expansion prospects, according to the Afghan commerce ministry. He assured them that he would take up their concerns over doing business in India with his counterparts.

In a meeting with managing director of the India Trade Promotion Organisation Neeraj Kharwal, Azizi discussed the possibility of holding joint Indian-Afghan exhibitions in New Delhi and Kabul and sought support for easing visa processing for Afghan participants.

A month earlier, Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi became the first senior Taliban official to visit India since the group seized power four years ago. He invited Indian companies to invest in Afghanistan’s mining, minerals and energy sectors and said Kabul would not allow its territory to be used against other countries.

During that visit, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said India would upgrade its technical mission in Kabul to the status of an embassy. Later that day, Muttaqi told reporters that India had also agreed to allow the Taliban to appoint diplomats at the Afghan embassy in New Delhi.

This marked a notable shift, since after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 India withdrew its diplomats from Kabul, cancelled visas issued to Afghan nationals and shut its embassy.

A year later, India began making outreach efforts. In June 2022, it sent a technical team to Kabul that has served as its de facto mission. Political contact gained pace after foreign secretary Vikram Misri’s meeting with Muttaqi in Doha in January and the first phone call between Jaishankar and the Afghan minister in May.

The improvement in India-Afghanistan ties has taken place against a tense regional backdrop. On the eve of the October meeting between Jaishankar and Muttaqi, tensions between Kabul and Islamabad resurfaced after Pakistani forces were reported to have carried out air strikes in Kabul and the Paktika province targeting a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan leader, which led to “retaliatory” attacks by Afghan forces.

Since then, multiple rounds of talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan were held, with Qatar and Turkey as mediators.

But after the collapse of the third round between Islamabad and Kabul earlier this month, the Taliban suspended trade ties with Pakistan. Negotiators were unable to bridge deep differences over mechanisms to curb cross-border terrorism, bringing the dialogue process to a halt.

Border crossings between the two countries have remained closed since October 11, with trade at a standstill due to ground fighting.

But, on November 13, Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, asked Afghan traders to find alternatives to trade routes through Pakistan while speaking at a gathering of merchants, industrialists and officials from the Ministry of Finance in Kabul. He urged them to clear all their contracts in Pakistan within three months.

Ahead of the visit, the Afghan commerce ministry had said that one of the aims of Azizi's India trip was “effectively using the capacities of Chabahar port”. India has been developing the Iranian port of Chabahar, which recently received a sanctions waiver from the United States.

According to a Reuters report, Afghanistan is increasingly making use of Iran’s tariff concessions to shift freight to Chabahar, bypassing Pakistan to steer clear of repeated border and transit disruptions and limit its dependence on those crossings.

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