The Taliban will attend China’s Belt and Road Forum next week, a spokesman said on Saturday, underscoring Beijing’s growing official ties with the administration, despite its lack of formal recognition by any government.
Taliban officials and ministers have at times travelled to regional meetings, mostly those focussed on Afghanistan, but the Belt and Road Forum is among the highest-profile multilateral summits it has been invited to attend.
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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
KABUL, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The Taliban will attend China’s Belt and Road Forum next week, a spokesman said on Saturday, underscoring Beijing’s growing official ties with the administration, despite its lack of formal recognition by any government.
Taliban officials and ministers have at times travelled to regional meetings, mostly those focussed on Afghanistan, but the Belt and Road Forum is among the highest-profile multilateral summits it has been invited to attend.
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 in a text message to Reuters.
Azizi will continue discussions in Beijing on plans to build a road through the Wakhan corridor, a thin, mountainous strip in northern Afghanistan, to provide direct access to China, Akhundzada said.
A series of restrictions on women’s access to public life and the barring of many female NGO staff from work has increased roadblocks to recognition, especially by Western countries, officials and international relations analysts say.
Other nations have kept on previous ambassadors or appointed heads of mission in a charge d’affaires capacity that does not involve formally presenting credentials to the government.
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