KABUL -- Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha Saturday arrived in the Afghan capital on board an Airbus aircraft that he will hand over to Afghanistan's Ariana Airlines.

Sinha is also due to meet President Hamid Karzai for talks, mainly on security and reconstruction, an Indian government official said Thursday.

The A-300 plane is one of three being given to Afghanistan by India's Foreign Ministry, which bought them from state carrier Air India.

The other two planes are expected to be delivered by the end of October. The planes are valued at 10 millions dollars.

India decided to offer the planes to Afghanistan in May during a visit to New Delhi by the Afghan Civil Aviation Minister Zalmai Rasool.

Ariana Airlines was grounded in 1999 when UN economic sanctions closed international airspace to the extremist Taleban regime.

Almost all the carrier's planes were destroyed during the U.S. bombing of the Kabul Airport as part of the campaign to oust the Taleban regime, which was toppled late last year.

India, along with Iran Rnd russia, was a key backer of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance against the hardline Taleban regime, who until after September 11 attacks on the United States were allied with India's arch-foe Pakistan.

Soon after the administration headed by Hamid Karzai came into power India pledged to help Afghanistan by developing its health sector, rebuilding government machinery and helping in education, civil aviation, transport, industry and agriculture, AFP reported.

In the past few months, Indian officials have expressed concern that fighters from the Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, blamed for the September 11 attacks, have left Afghanistan and entered Indian Kashmir to join Muslim separatists there.

Muslim-dominated Indian Kashmir has been gripped since 1989 by a separatist insurrection.