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China Joins Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan in Security Alliance
China is to set up an anti-terrorism alliance with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, state media said on Thursday, as it seeks to boost coordination with neighbours to tackle what it says is a growing domestic militant threat, Reuters reported.
Fang Fenghui, a member of the powerful Central Military Commission which controls China’s armed forces, hosted a meeting with his counterparts on Wednesday in Urumqi, capital of the western Xinjiang region, where officials say they are battling Islamist militants.
The four countries recognised the serious threat of terrorism and extremism to regional stability, the official Xinhua news agency said, and they agreed to set up a “four-country mechanism” for intelligence sharing and training.
“All parties reaffirmed they will cooperate to respond to these forces, and safeguard all member countries’ peace and stability,” Xinhua said.
Afghan army chief of general staff, General Qadam Shah Shaheem, Pakistani army chief General Raheel Sharif, and the Chief of General Staff of the Tajikistan armed forces, Major General E A Cobidrzoda, took part in the talks, the news agency said.
The meeting comes after China’s defence minister this week thanked Afghanistan’s Shaheem for support in fighting the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) an Islamist group that China says wants to set up a separate state in Xinjiang.
China did not elaborate on the help it got.
China has long been concerned that instability in Afghanistan will spill over into violence-prone Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people, where hundreds of people have died in recent years in unrest Beijing blames on extremists.
The United States and the United Nations have listed ETIM as a terrorist group, though some experts have questioned its cohesiveness and say China’s policies in Xinjiang have contributed to unrest.
China denies that its policies stoke tension in Xinjiang or motivate Uighurs to joinIslamic State militants, though it acknowledges some have gone to Syria and Iraq to join the group.
China is also working with Pakistan and the United States to broker peace talks to end a Taliban insurgency that has raged for 15 years in Afghanistan.
That effort never got beyond exploratory talks and appeared to break down completely when Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan in May.
Sources in the Taliban told Reuters that a Taliban delegation visited China in July, though Chinese officials have not confirmed it.
Officials at the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) say 7,000 incomplete projects of the World Bank are at risk of destruction in Afghanistan. They call on the World Bank to resume the work of these projects.
According to them, discussions have been held with the World Bank about these projects, but there has been no result yet.
“7,000 incomplete projects are being destroyed, and if the work is not started, these projects will be destroyed. We ask the World Bank to resume the work of these projects as soon as possible,” said Noorul Hadi Adel, the spokesperson of MRRD.
Meanwhile, members of the private sector also ask international institutions to resume their work in Afghanistan.
According to the officials of this sector, with the start of these projects, job opportunities will be provided for thousands of people in the country.
“These projects create employment for our people and the country will grow a lot,” said Mirwais Hajizadeh, a member of the private sector.
However, economic experts stated if the work of these projects does not start soon, they will be destroyed and the investments made in them will be wasted.
Ten people have been killed and six others injured by floods in Helmand province in the past week, local officials said on Friday.
According to officials, seven of those were members of the same family, and they were killed in Kajaki district last night.
“Most of the people moved from vulnerable areas to high lands and mountains, and thanks Allah the number of casualties is low,” Sher Mohammad Vahdat, the head of information of the Directorate of Information and Culture in Helmand, said adding rescue teams and security forces have been dispatched to help people.
It is said that the telecommunication system has also been disrupted due to the effect of floods in Kajaki district. Floods have also destroyed thousands of acres of agricultural land.
Roza Otunbayeva, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, met with the Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in New Delhi and discussed issues related to Afghanistan, it was announced on Thursday.
During the meeting, Otunbayeva thanked India for “its critical humanitarian support and longstanding friendship for the Afghan people” and discussed the importance of regional and international cooperation to address prevailing challenges in Afghanistan, UNAMA said on X.
Jaishankar also said on X that the sides exchanged views on the current situation in Afghanistan.
“Underlined that India has provided wheat, medicines, pesticides and school supplies. Appreciate the role of UN agencies as partners in these endeavors,” he said.
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