(Incorporates Kalam's Banquet speech)

New Delhi, Apr 10 (UNI) India today announced an additional 50 million dollar assistance to Afghanistan for reconstruction programmes while both countries stressed the need for regional cooperation against terrorism saying there could be no compromise with its perpetrators.

With the additional assistance, the total amount of Indian aid to Afghanistan has gone up to 650 million dollars.

The two sides also signed three Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) on cooperation in the fields of Education, Rural Development and Standardisation.

The pacts were signed in the presence of visiting Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after nearly two-hour talks between the two leaders on various aspects of bilateral relations including development and cooperation against terrorism.

President A P J Abdul Kalam, at a banquet given in honour of the Afghan President in the evening, also expressed concern at the increase in violence in some provinces of Afghanistan and cautioned that the fight against terrorism was not easy.

He reaffirmed India's commitment to working together with Afghanistan for making it a stable and prosperous country and hoped that Indo-Afghan cooperation would further increase.

''We are concerned to see that in recent months, incidents of violence have increased in some of the provinces. We are also concerned at the nature of these attacks. We know that the fight against global terrorism is not an easy one but we are also convinced that given the political will and commitment, this challenge will also be met successfully by the Afghan people,'' Dr Kalam said in his speech.

At the talks between Prime Minister Singh and President Karzai during the day, it was agreed that India would host the second Regional Economic Reconstruction Conference for Afghanistan in New Delhi on November 18-19 this year.

The Prime Miniter announced that India would consider establishing a Line of Credit (LOC) facility of 50 million US dollars and said both countries had decided to set up a Joint Committee of Commerce Ministers to review the implementation of the bilateral Preferential Trade Agreement and promote bilateral trade.

Addressing a joint press conference after their talks, the two leaders strongly condemned terrorism saying both countries had been the victims of the menace.

They called for regional cooperation against terrorism.

The two leaders, however, stopped short of blaming Pakistan for increased terrorist activity across the Pak-Afghan border and said that even Pakistan was not immune to terrorism.

Afghanistan has earlier accused Pakistan of aiding terrorists across the Pak-Afghan border into Afghanistan.

To a question on Trade and Transit XXX Picking up opening para of DI 71, EXTERNAL-LEAD INDIA-AFGHANISTAN TWO LAST NEW DELHI.

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