By: K J M Varma
Beijing: China has asked the Taliban’s interim administration in Afghanistan to meet the “expectation of the international community” in response to the Islamist group’s appeal to Beijing to help it get the global recognition.
“We hope the Afghan side will respond further to the expectation of the international community, establish an open and inclusive political architecture, adopt moderate and prudent domestic and foreign policies, firmly combat all sorts of terrorist forces,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a media briefing on Tuesday.
The new Afghanistan government should also “live on friendly terms with other countries, especially its neighbours, and integrate into the international family at an early date”, he said responding to a question quoting reports from Kabul that the Taliban had sought China’s help to get the global diplomatic recognition.
China has been asking the Taliban to crackdown on the separatist East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) active in the volatile Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, which shares borders with Afghanistan.
No country has so far recognised the Taliban government despite the diplomatic campaign from Pakistan which firmly backed the Afghan militant group to seize power in August last year.
Taliban’s failure to form an inclusive government with other Afghan political leaders, exclusion of Afghan women from public life as well as girls from education besides its alleged links with the transnational terrorist groups remained main reservations of the global community to extend diplomatic recognition.
On Wednesday, acting Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Hasan Akhund appealed for international recognition of the Taliban government, saying “I ask all governments, especially Islamic countries, that they should start recognition.”
“Afghanistan has met all criteria and conditions needed for recognition of a government, therefore I am calling upon the world countries to recognise the legitimate government (of) the Islamic Emirate and extend support to Afghans,” China’s state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Akhund as saying while addressing an economic conference in Kabul.
This is the first time that Akhund made a major public appearance since he assumed the role in September last year, the Xinhua report said.
Zhao said China has noted that “the Afghan interim government has actively engaged in international exchange, and quite a few countries”.
“We hold that the international community should support the Afghan people in seeking a development path in keeping with their national realities and realising lasting stability and development on the basis of respecting the country’s sovereign independence and territorial integrity,” he said.
Beijing supports the Taliban demand that the US should defreeze about USD 9.5 billion foreign currency reserves of Afghanistan mostly held in the US.
The Taliban takeover also led to the suspension of non-humanitarian international funding for aid-dependent Afghanistan.
Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, acting foreign minister of the caretaker government, said during the conference in Kabul on Wednesday that his government invites “leading international companies, governments and investors to invest in various sectors of Afghanistan.”
China, which has kept its embassy in Kabul opened along with that of Pakistan and Russia, has announced USD 31 million humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
Also, after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August last year, Chinese businessmen visited the war-torn country to explore contracts to exploit Afghanistan’s rich mineral deposits.
