Islamabad:
The Taliban agreed with China and Pakistan to expand the Belt and Road Initiative into Afghanistan, potentially drawing in billions of dollars to fund infrastructure projects in the sanctions-hit country.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari met in Islamabad on Saturday and resolved to work together on Afghanistan’s reconstruction process, including the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to the Taliban-ruled nation.
According to a joint statement issued by Pakistan’s foreign ministry after the meeting, “the two sides agreed to continue their humanitarian and economic assistance to the Afghan people and enhance development cooperation through expansion of the CPEC in Afghanistan.”
Chinese and Pakistani officials have discussed expanding the project, built under President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road initiative that began nearly a decade ago, to Afghanistan. The cash-strapped Taliban government has expressed the possibility of participating in the project and receiving much-needed infrastructure investment.
The Taliban’s top diplomat, Amir Khan Muttaki, traveled to Islamabad to meet his Chinese and Pakistani counterparts and reach an agreement, his deputy spokesman Hafiz Zia Ahmed said by phone.
The Taliban have also expressed hope from China to boost investment in the country’s rich resources, estimated at $1 trillion. The government signed 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 the need to unfreeze Afghanistan’s foreign financial assets. The Taliban have been blocked from accessing approximately $9 billion of Afghanistan’s central bank, which are kept overseas due to concerns that the funds will be used for terrorist activities.
frozen asset
Washington later agreed to release half of it to bolster the economy, but put it on hold after the Taliban imposed some school and work restrictions on Afghan women last year.
After international aid accounts for 60 percent of public spending following the chaotic withdrawal of US troops in 2021, the terrorist-turned-administrator sees investment as a way to fix the cash-strapped economy.
China, Russia and Iran are among a handful of countries that maintain warm relations with the Taliban. They have provided the Taliban with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, but have shied away from formally recognizing the government.
A UN agency said last week that the Taliban needed $4.6 billion this year to help more than two-thirds of the country’s 40 million people, who live in extreme poverty. A 2022 Gallup poll showed that nine out of ten Afghans find it “difficult” or “very difficult” to survive on their current income.
Chinese businesses have been wary of investing in Afghanistan because of attacks by the Islamic State group, which is competing with the Taliban for influence. In December, the militant group claimed credit for an attack on a Kabul hotel popular among Chinese diplomats and businessmen.
There is also the presence of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group based in Xinjiang, which has kept Beijing cautious about expanding its influence.
Muttaki’s second visit to Pakistan comes days after the United Nations stressed the need to engage with Taliban rulers as Afghanistan faces the “biggest” humanitarian crisis in the world.