Pakistan hosts 5th China-Pakistan-Afghanistan Trilateral FMs Dialogue at Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Pakistan looks forward to advancing our common agenda for regional cooperation under trilateral framework: Mumtaz Zahra Baloch
ISLAMABAD ( Web News )
Pakistan hosted 5th China-Pakistan-Afghanistan Trilateral Foreign Ministers (FMs) Dialogue at Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday.
Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch in a statement issued on twitter, held productive discussions on political engagement, counter terrorism, trade and connectivity. She said that Pakistan looks forward to advancing our common agenda for regional cooperation under trilateral framework.
FO Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch has also issued the pictures of the trilateral dialogue chaired by Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and attended by Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Acting Afghan Foreign Minister Maulvi Amir Khan Muttaqi along with their delegations. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar, Foreign Secretary, Dr. Asad Majeed Khan and other Pakistani high officials were also present.
Pakistan is hosting talks with China and Taliban-led Afghanistan. The Taliban administration’s interim foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, who has long been subjected to a UN travel ban, asset freeze, and arms embargo, was granted an exemption to travel to Pakistan by a UN Security Council committee on May 1. The talks in Islamabad with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari are expected to focus on regional security and economic issues.
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.
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.
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.
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.