An International Conference opened here on Tuesday with Afghan President, Mr Hamid Karzai, seeking help to move towards self-governance as the meeting backed his efforts to involve elements in Taliban but said any amnesty should only be extended to those who had no links to global terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, a stance supported by India. The biggest ever conference on Afghanistan bringing delegates from 70 nations to chalk out the future of the war-torn country began amidst a total lock-down of the Afghan capital and is considering a plan to hand over security in the country's 34 provinces to the Afghan government by 2014. Flanked by UN Secretary General, Mr Ban Ki-moon and US secretary of state, Ms Hillary Clinton, Mr Karzai sporting a peaked fur hat said Afghanistan and its international allies shared a "vicious common enemy" and triumph over these enemies would come by handing over responsibilities to Afghans to combat the insurgency within the country's border. Backing the move to hand over responsibility to the elected Afghan government, Ms Clinton said that the US planned to accelerate the process of handing over security to Afghan military and police. Acknowledging the deepening opposition to international involvement in the conflict, Ms Clinton said, "the July 2011 date captures both our sense of urgency and strength of our resolve." "The transition process is too important to push off indefinitely. But this date is the start of the new process and not the end of our involvement," she said. Speaking at the conference the external affairs minister, Mr S.M. Krishna, said,"the international community must learn lessons from past experiences at negotiating with fundamentalists and extremist organisations and ensure that any peace process is conducted in an inclusive and transparent manner." "India supports Afghanistan's efforts towards peace and reintegration. But for such an effort to succeed, it must be fully Afghan-led and carry all sections of country's population together as well as abide by the red lines agreed at the London conference like giving up violence, cutting of all links with terrorism - whether jihadi or state-sponsored - and accepting the democratic and pluralistic value of the Afghan constitution, including women's rights," he said. A draft communique up for adoption by the conference and seen by PTI says "The Afghan government's Peace and Reintegration Programme is open to all Afghan members of the armed opposition and their communities, who renounce violence, have no link to international terrorist organisations, respect the constitution and are willing to join in building a peaceful Afghanistan."