China to host Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan’s neighbours

Third meeting of new mechanism will see Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov travel to China for the first time since the Ukraine invasion

China will on Wednesday and Thursday host the third meeting of Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan’s neighbours, with Beijing giving its backing to a new dialogue mechanism that brings together Russia, Pakistan and Iran among other neighbours.

Pakistan had in September 2021 chaired the first meeting of this group which was held virtually, with the second meeting hosted by Tehran the following month.

China will this week host foreign ministers and representatives from Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday, while the Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan’s Taliban government, Amir Khan Muttaqi, will also attend the meeting in China’s Anhui province.

The meeting will also see Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov travel to China, his first visit there following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Lavrov is also expected to travel to India this week, as Moscow comes under increasing pressure from the West as well as from sanctions in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

“The Afghan situation is now in a critical transition from chaos to order, with the Afghan people facing multiple challenges from within and outside that need to be addressed with more support and help from others,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Monday. “By hosting the third Foreign Ministers’ Meeting among the Neighbouring Countries of Afghanistan, China looks forward to pooling more consensus on the Afghan issue from neighbouring countries, discussing ways to jointly stabilise the Afghan situation and support and help the Afghan people, and share our voice with the rest of the international community as neighbours of Afghanistan. In the meantime, we also expect the international community to give greater support to Afghanistan and call on the US to shoulder the primary responsibility for Afghanistan’s economic reconstruction in real earnest.” The meeting in China this week follows Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s surprise visit to Kabul last week, which took place in between his trips to Islamabad and New Delhi. India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said last week, following his talks with Mr. Wang, that China had not invited India to this week’s meeting. India had also not been invited to the previous two meetings of the grouping.

In September last year, Mr. Wang hailed this new mechanism, at a meeting chaired by Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, as “the first attempt by Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries to work closely in response to the evolving situation in the country.”

“It also signifies the establishment of a coordination and cooperation mechanism of its neighbouring countries, which is both timely and necessary,” he said. “The meeting will give a common voice and an explicit political message of its neighbouring countries.”