Neighbours urge Kabul to fulfil promises
ISLAMABAD: REFERENCES: Senior diplomats from China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran met in Uzbekistan on Thursday to discuss developments in Afghanistan, as participants expressed concern over some actions taken by the interim government in Kabul.
While the foreign ministers of China, Russia and Iran participated in the second group of four meetings on Afghanistan, the Pakistani side was represented by Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
The four-nation delegation also attended a special meeting of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries in Samarkand. Amir Khan Muttaqi, Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister, also attended the meeting where some countries expressed concern over the Taliban’s move to ban girls’ education and their failure to combat militant groups. Afghanistan’s neighboring countries policy was established in 2021 at the initiative of Pakistan with the aim of developing a regional response to the situation in Afghanistan.
Pakistan hosted the first meeting of ministers of the neighboring countries on September 8, 2021 and participated in the second meeting held two months later in the Iranian capital, Tehran. The third meeting was held in Tunxi, China in March The move will help build consensus among Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, which are among those directly affected by the situation in Afghanistan.
“We meet at a difficult time. Afghanistan currently faces multiple and mutually reinforcing challenges. The humanitarian situation in the country remains dire, with 28 million people – more than 2/3 of the population – requiring urgent humanitarian assistance to survive,” Khar said during the conference. “The threat of terrorism continues to wreak havoc on the lives of the Afghan people every day. The threat posed by terrorist organizations to neighboring countries and the region has increased,” he stressed.
