India congratulates Ashraf Ghani on his re-election as Afghan president

NEW DELHI: India on Thursday congratulated

Ashraf Ghani

on his re-election as the

Afghanistan

president and said New Delhi remains committed to working with the new Kabul government in the fight against externally sponsored terrorism.


In a statement on Thursday, days after Afghanistan Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced a slim victory for Ghani in the elections held in September, the

Ministry of External Affairs

(MEA) said that the new government and all political leaders in Afghanistan should work to strengthen national unity.

The votes were held last September amid a record number of

Taliban attacks

intended to destabilize the election. The results were announced after weeks of assessments by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) after it completed the partial audit of the 300,000 disputed votes,

"We congratulate President Dr Ashraf Ghani on his re-election following the announcement of final results of the Presidential elections by the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan," read the statement.

"India supports the democratic aspirations of the people of Afghanistan and remains committed to continuing to work with the new Government and the democratic polity in strengthening our bilateral strategic partnership in fighting the scourge of externally sponsored terrorism and for an enduring and inclusive national peace and reconciliation which is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan controlled," it added.

The preliminary results of the September votes were announced in December. Ghani was narrowly declared the winner while Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah got 39 percent of a total of over 1.8 million votes.

However, opposition parties immediately protested the result, threatening a full-blown political crisis on the cusp of a United States peace deal with the Taliban. The IEC conducted the assessments of votes and announced the results earlier this week declaring Ghani as the winner.