China welcomed a rare nine-person Taliban delegation amid its current ancestors in Afghanistan on Wednesday, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi described the group as "a fundamental military and political force" in the country.
The delegation, led by Abdul Ghani Baradar, head of the Taliban's political office in Doha, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other officials in Tianjin, a port city about 100 km southeast of Beijing. The visit to China is the group's first after gaining ground in Afghanistan, including Badakshan Province, which borders China's western Xinjiang region. However, it is not the first such visit by the Taliban to China and culminates in Beijing's years of cautious rapprochement with the group, sometimes mediated by Pakistan, China's "all-weather" ally.
In 2015, China held talks between the Taliban and Afghan officials at a Pakistan-backed meeting in the city of Urumqi, the provincial capital of Xinjiang. The visit of the Taliban delegation also takes place days after a meeting between Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Wang in the Chinese city of Chengdu. Both sides said Saturday they had agreed "joint actions" to work more closely together in Afghanistan amid the changing situation. in the country.
"Refrain from Terrorism,"
China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that Wang had urged the Taliban to draw "a dividing line" between the group and terrorist organizations, particularly the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), who launched the attacks in Xinjiang. He described the Taliban as "a critical military and political force in Afghanistan" and said that they "are expected to play an important role in the peace, reconciliation and reconstruction process". He said China hoped the group would "fight decisively and effectively."
The head of the Taliban delegation, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement, promised that the group "will not allow any violence to use Afghan territory to harm China. He was also quoted as saying that the Taliban" awaited that China should participate more in the peace and reconstruction process and play a more important role in the future reconstruction and economic development of Afghanistan. "