Nudged by China, Taliban mends fences with Pakistan, CPEC to be extended to Afghanistan

After phone call with Jaishankar, Taliban foreign minister meets Chinese, Pakistani counterparts in Beijing, agrees on trilateral security cooperation.

New Delhi: Just days after New Delhi elevated its engagement with the Taliban regime in Kabul to the ministerial level, China on Wednesday stepped in to help mend the fences between the Sunni Islamist militia in power in Afghanistan and its former mentor, Pakistan and vowed to expand security cooperation with both.

The foreign ministers of China, Pakistan and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan agreed to be “vigilant against external forces interfering in the internal affairs of countries in the region”.

They agreed to add momentum to the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan, notwithstanding New Delhi’s objection to the connectivity project passing through the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir of India.

Less than a week after having a phone call with Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and condemning the April 22 carnage in Jammu and Kashmir by a gang of Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists, Taliban Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi travelled to Beijing and had a meeting with his counterpart in the Chinese Government Wang Yi.

Muttaqi also had a meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who was already on a visit to China. Wang later had a trilateral meeting with Muttaqi and Dar on Wednesday.

With Muttaqi and Dar agreeing to post each other’s ambassadors in Islamabad and Kabul, Wang promised to “continue to assist in the improvement of Afghanistan-Pakistan relations”, according to a press release issued by the government of China.

Muttaqi, Dar and Wang agreed to “deepen cooperation in jointly building infrastructure under China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” and “promote the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan”. They also agreed to strengthen the construction of regional interconnection networks.

New Delhi opposed the CPEC 1.0 as it violated the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of India. The 3000-km-long connectivity project, a flagship component of the Belt and Road Initiative envisaged by Chinese President Xi Jinping, linked China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region and the port city of Gwadar in southern Pakistan. It covered India’s territory in J&K under illegal occupation by Pakistan. China pledged to invest $ 65 billion in infrastructure projects along the CPEC, including the territories of India occupied by Pakistan.

The CPEC 2.0 – an upgraded version of the CPEC 1.0 – is likely to allow China to spread its tentacles not only in Pakistan and areas illegally occupied by Pakistan but also in Afghanistan, posing a strategic challenge to India.

Islamabad had welcomed the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in August 2021 as it had perceived that the Sunni Islamist militia would give Pakistan a strategic edge in Afghanistan vis-à-vis India. The relations between Pakistan and the so-called government run by the Taliban in Afghanistan had worsened over the past three-and-a-half years.

Islamabad had been alleging that the terrorist organisation Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has been using its bases in Afghanistan to carry out a series of terror attacks in Pakistan.

New Delhi had, early this year, condemned Pakistan’s airstrikes in Afghanistan and targeting of civilians on the pretext of carrying out attacks on the hideouts of the TTP terrorists.

The April 15 phone call between Muttaqi and Jaishankar on April 15 was the first between India’s external affairs minister and the foreign minister of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Jaishankar thanked him for Kabul’s “firm rejection” of Islamabad’s allegation that India had also targeted Afghanistan while retaliating to the offensive by Pakistan during the cross-border flare-up between May 7 and 10.

Unlike in 1996, New Delhi did not formally shut down its embassy in Kabul after the return of the Taliban to power after two decades. It evacuated its envoy and other diplomats from Afghanistan in August 2021 but sent back a “technical team” less than a year later to run its mission in Kabul and coordinate the delivery of humanitarian aid – food and medicines – from India. New Delhi’s diplomats had several rounds of engagements with the leaders of the Taliban in the past two years. Muttaqi and India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, had a meeting in Dubai on January 8.

Like many other nations, India has not yet recognised the Taliban government in Afghanistan. But New Delhi’s outreach to the Sunni Islamist group in power in Kabul was apparently aimed at stopping India’s strategic rivals, Pakistan and China, from turning the militia’s return to power in Afghanistan into an advantage.

Muttaqi, however, on Wednesday told Wang that the Taliban government in Kabul attached importance to China's security concerns and would never allow any force to use Afghan territory to engage in activities that endanger China. Afghanistan is willing to strengthen security cooperation with China, combat violent crimes, safeguard China's interests in Afghanistan, and jointly maintain regional security and stability.

Islamabad has long been accusing India of using the territory of Afghanistan to trigger unrest in Balochistan in Pakistan, as well as to orchestrate terrorist attacks, which often targeted even personnel of China engaged in the projects taken up under the CPEC 1.0.