Pakistan set to host trilateral dialogue with China, Afghanistan

Pakistan will host a day-long trilateral dialogue with China and Afghanistan in Islamabad following the arrival of 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 talks with their Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari.

Muttaqi, Afghanistan’s interim foreign minister, was issued a travel ban by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) earlier this month, allowing him to travel to Pakistan. He has long been subject to a travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo under UN Security Council sanctions.

“The government of Afghanistan wants to hold extensive talks on bilateral politico-commercial relations, regional stability and transit between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Ziad Ahmad Takkal, deputy spokesman for the Afghan foreign ministry, said on Friday.

While this will be China’s foreign minister’s first visit to Pakistan, Muttaqi last traveled to Pakistan in November 2021, just a few months after the Afghan Taliban took power in Kabul.

The Afghan minister’s visit to Pakistan comes on the same week that the UN hosted a conference on Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, without inviting the country’s Taliban leaders.

At the Doha Conference on May 2, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the Taliban’s repression of women’s rights in Afghanistan, including the ban on education.

“Let me be crystal clear, we will never remain silent in the face of unprecedented systematic attacks on the rights of women and girls. We will always speak up when millions of women and girls are silenced and erased from view,” Guterres said.

The UN chief was adamant that the Taliban would not be recognized as the rulers of Afghanistan.

“The meeting was about developing a common international approach, not about recognizing the de facto Taliban authorities,” Guterres told reporters in Doha.

Pakistan maintains close ties with its northwestern neighbour. The two countries share a 2,600 km (1,660 mi) border, also known as the Durand Line. However, Muttaqi’s visit comes as Pakistan has seen a dramatic increase in violent attacks in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern province of Balochistan, both of which border Afghanistan.

Authorities in Pakistan claim the attacks were carried out from Afghan territory by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an armed group ideologically affiliated with the Afghan Taliban. However, despite the brief altercation between the authorities of both countries, Pakistan has continued to hold talks with the Afghan Taliban without officially recognizing them as the country’s legitimate government.

‘Positive progress’

In his address to India’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on Friday, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bhutto-Zardari urged the international community to “cooperate meaningfully” with the interim Afghan government.

“Having been the playground for great powers time and time again, we owe it to the people of Afghanistan not to repeat the mistakes of the past,” he said in the speech in the Indian city of Goa.

Abdul Syed, an expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan, said Muttaqi’s visit to Islamabad was an important development in relations between the two countries, especially in light of recent tensions.

“After the repeated attacks of TTP in recent months and the police line [an area in the city where important government installations are located] After the bomb attack in Peshawar in January this year, Pakistan has lodged a complaint with the Afghan government. But they received brusque responses from Muttaqi. So his making this visit now can be seen as a relaxation of his stance and positive progress,” Sweden-based Syed told Al Jazeera.

China, the third participant in the dialogue, also has significant interests in the other two countries.

Beijing is Pakistan’s most important economic and defense partner and has invested heavily in Pakistan, spearheading $60 billion in the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. However, multiple attacks by armed groups in recent years have targeted Chinese nationals and their interests in Pakistan.

China has asked Pakistan to ensure the safety of its citizens and their investments.

Chinese companies are also investing in Afghanistan.

A Chinese company signed a multi-million dollar investment contract in January this year, the country’s first significant foreign investment since August 2021, when the Taliban took over.

In March 2022, then-Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi also made a surprise visit to Kabul, where he met with Taliban leaders “to discuss various issues, including the expansion of political relations, economic cooperation and transit cooperation” .

Some observers believe that China’s involvement in Afghanistan has more to do with security concerns than economic interests.

Aamer Raza, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Peshawar, told Al Jazeera that the main Chinese concern in Afghanistan is minimizing the threat from the East Turk Islamic Movement (ETIM), which is why Beijing continues to engage with the Afghan Taliban. .

ETIM is an al-Qaeda-affiliated armed group that has carried out attacks against China in its pursuit of establishing “East Turkistan” in mainland China.

“China has maintained its diplomatic presence… with the Afghan contact group and other multilateral fora under the SCO and beyond, meaning the Chinese are well positioned to mitigate at least immediate security threats,” Raza told Al Jazeera.

In the aftermath of the UN conference in Doha, which excluded the Taliban, Raza believes it is unproductive not to ally with the Afghan leadership.

“Regardless of what the UN has done, it is necessary to socialize the Taliban into international norms without giving them full diplomatic recognition. In the absence of domestic opposition and sufficient regional support, the policy of non-involvement will hardly have the desired effects,” he said.

Syed said that despite security concerns and tantalizing altercations, Pakistan and Afghanistan need each other.

“It is a political imperative for Islamabad to maintain ties with Kabul as the Afghan Taliban are trying to improve relations with other regional countries and Pakistan cannot afford to ignore them,” he said.

“Similarly, the Afghan Taliban also realize that despite some diplomatic progress they are making in the region, it is imperative for them to maintain cordial ties with Pakistan.”