The Taliban administration has expressed its intention to formally join President Xi Jinping’s extensive Belt and Road Infrastructure initiative, Taliban’s acting commerce minister Nooruddin Azizi said Thursday, adding that a technical team would be dispatched to China for discussions on the matter.
Despite the absence of formal recognition from any country since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, Beijing has actively worked to establish ties with the new administration.
“We requested China to allow us to be a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the path that join us through Tajikistan,” Azizi said as quoted in an interview by Reuters.
Afghanistan’s vast reserves of sought-after mineral resources make it an appealing prospect for China.
Last month, China appointed its ambassador to Kabul, marking the first such appointment by any nation since the Taliban’s rise to power.
Other countries have retained their previous ambassadors or appointed heads of mission in a charge d’affaires capacity, avoiding the formal presentation of credentials to the Taliban government.
“Afghanistan is now, more than ever, ready for investment,” Azizi asserted as quoted by Reuters.
While the Taliban’s restrictive policies affecting women’s participation in public life and their exclusion from work in many female-focused NGOs have posed obstacles to international recognition, particularly from Western nations, officials and international relations experts have noted the challenges ahead.
This comes as a Taliban delegation attended the two-day Belt and Road Forum in China this week.
