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08-05-2023
Bureau Report + Agencies
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is set to host a day-long trilateral dialogue with China and Afghanistan in Islamabad after the arrival of the Chinese and Afghan foreign ministers, Qin Gang and Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, on Friday.
In addition to attending the fifth round of the trilateral dialogue between the three countries on Saturday, the two foreign ministers will also participate in bilateral discussions with their Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.
Muttaqi, Afghanistan’s interim foreign minister, was granted a travel ban exemption by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) earlier this month allowing him to travel to Pakistan. He has long been subjected to a travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo under UNSC sanctions.
“The government of Afghanistan wants to hold comprehensive talks on bilateral political-commercial relations, regional stability and transit between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Ziad Ahmad Takkal, deputy spokesperson of the Afghan foreign ministry, said on Friday.
While this will be the Chinese foreign minister’s first visit to Pakistan, Muttaqi last travelled to Pakistan in November 2021, just a few months after the Afghan Taliban took control in Kabul.
The visit to Pakistan by the Afghan minister comes in the same week the UN hosted a conference on Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, without inviting the country’s Taliban rulers.
Addressing the Doha conference on May 2, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Taliban’s suppression of women’s rights in Afghanistan, including the ban on education.
“Let me be crystal clear, we will never be silent in the face of unprecedented systemic attacks on women’s and girls’ rights. We’ll always speak out when millions of women and girls are being silenced and erased from sight,” Guterres said.
The UN chief was categorical that the Taliban would not be recognized as the rulers of Afghanistan.
“The meeting was about developing a common international approach, not about recognition of the de facto Taliban authorities,” Guterres told reporters in Doha.
