Pakistan set to host trilateral dialogue with China, Afghanistan

 The meeting is taking place following the Chinese and Afghan foreign ministers’ arrival in Islamabad..

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, left, shakes hand with Pakistani President Arif Alvi, right, in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 5, 2023 [Pakistan President Office via AP]

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.

In this photo provided by the Afghanistan Embassy in Pakistan, the Taliban-appointed Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, centre, walks with other officials on his arrival in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 5, 2023 [Afghanistan Embassy in Pakistan via AP]

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 recognised 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.            

     Pakistan maintains close ties with its northwestern neighbour. The two countries share a 2,600 km-long (1,660 miles) border, also known as the Durand Line. However, Muttaqi’s visit comes at a time when 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 allege the attacks are launched from within Afghan territory by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an armed group ideologically aligned with the Afghan Taliban. However, despite the exchange of terse words between the authorities of both countries, Pakistan has continued to hold talks with the Afghan Taliban without officially recognising them as the country’s lawful government.

‘Positive progress’

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

“After being the playground for great powers, time and time again, we owe it to the people of Afghanistan to not 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, particularly in light of recent tensions.

“After TTP’s repeated attacks in the last few months and the Police Line [an area in the city where important government installations are located] bombing in Peshawar in January this year, Pakistan raised objections with the Afghan government. But they were given brusque responses from Muttaqi. So, for him to make this visit now can be seen as a softening of stance and positive progress,” the 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 key economic and defence partner and has invested heavily in Pakistan, headlining with $60bn in the ambitious China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. However, multiple attacks by armed groups have targeted Chinese nationals and their interests in Pakistan in recent years.