TALIBAN SHAKES HANDS WITH CHINA IN ISLAMABAD MEETING FOR BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE

Sun 07 May 2023:

The Belt and Road Initiative will now include Afghanistan, following an agreement between the Taliban, China, and Pakistan. This could bring in billions of dollars to support infrastructure development in the sanctioned nation, Bloomberg reported.

During their Saturday meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and China’s Qin Gang agreed to cooperate on Afghanistan’s reconstruction efforts, including bringing the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to the Taliban-ruled country.

“The two sides agreed to continue their humanitarian and economic assistance for the Afghan people and enhance development cooperation in Afghanistan, including through extension of CPEC to Afghanistan,” according to a joint statement issued by Pakistan’s foreign ministry following the meeting.

Chinese and Pakistani officials have previously discussed extending the project to Afghanistan built under President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road initiative that started almost a decade ago. The cash-strapped Taliban government has expressed readiness to participate in the project and the prospect of getting much needed infrastructure investment.

The Taliban’s top diplomat, Amir Khan Muttaqi, traveled to Islamabad to meet his Chinese and Pakistani counterparts and reached an agreement, his deputy spokesman Hafiz Zia Ahmad said by phone.

The Taliban have also harbored hopes for China to boost investments in the country’s rich resources, estimated to be $1 trillion. The government inked its first contract in January with a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation to extract oil from the northern Amu Darya basin.

The Chinese and Pakistani ministers also stressed on the need to unfreeze Afghanistan’s overseas financial assets. The Taliban has been blocked from accessing about $9 billion of Afghanistan’s central bank reserves held overseas on concerns the funds will be used for terror activities.

According to a UN organization, the Taliban needs $4.6 billion this year to help more than two-thirds of the country’s 40 million people living in extreme poverty. According to a Gallup poll conducted in 2022, nine out of ten Afghans found it “difficult” or “very difficult” to survive on their current wage.

Amir Khan Muttaqi’s second journey to Pakistan comes just days after the United Nations emphasized the importance of engaging with the Taliban rulers as Afghanistan faces the world’s “largest” humanitarian crisis.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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