Taliban to join China’s Belt and Road forum; Pak, China to ink highway deals under CPEC

Kabul/ Islamabad, Oct 15: Taliban will attend China’s Belt and Road Forum underscoring Beijing’s growing official ties with the administration, despite its lack of formal recognition by any government, the media reported. Taliban officials and ministers have at times travelled to regional meetings, mostly those focused on Afghanistan, but the Belt and Road Forum is among the highest-profile multilateral summits it has been invited to attend, The News reported.
The forum in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday marks the 10th anniversary of President Xi Jinping’s ambitious global infrastructure and energy initiative, billed as recreating the ancient Silk Road to boost global trade.
The Taliban’s acting minister for commerce and industry, Haji Nooruddin Azizi, will travel to Beijing in the coming days, ministry spokesman Akhundzada Abdul Salam Jawad said. “He will attend and will invite large investors” to Afghanistan, he said. The impoverished country could offer a wealth of coveted mineral resources. A mines minister estimated in 2010 that Afghanistan had untapped deposits, ranging from copper to gold and lithium, worth between $1 trillion and $3 trillion. It is not clear how much they are worth today, The News reported.
China has been in talks with the Taliban over plans, begun under the previous foreign-backed government, over a possible huge copper mine in eastern Afghanistan. In a related development, China and Pakistan will ink significant agreements regarding motorways and highways during the upcoming four-day visit of caretaker Pak Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar to Beijing, starting from October 16. The agreements will be signed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Dawn reported.
PM Kakar is visiting China to attend ‘Third Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation’, being held in Beijing from October 17 to 18.
“The prime minister will attend the opening ceremony of the BRF and address the high-level forum entitled ’Connectivity in an Open Global Economy,” the PM office said in a post on X on Saturday. For Pakistan, one of the significant Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) to be signed is related to the establishment of a modern Highway Research & Training Centre (HRTC) with Chinese assistance. The project will prominently take centre stage during the PM’s discussion with Chinese authorities. HRTC is a subsidiary of National Highway Authority for carrying out indigenous research in various faculties of highway engineering. (IANS)