KABUL (SW) – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Kabul on Thursday to meet with senior Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan officials.
During the meeting with the visiting delegation, Mullah Baradar assured of resolving all concerns China might have. The Chinese Foreign Minister said that China was ready to further expand trade ties with Afghanistan.
“China is ready to invest in Afghanistan’s mining sector, economic zones and energy production,” Wang said in a statement issued by the First Deputy Prime Minister’s Office. The Chinese Foreign Minister also said that he would soon start work on exploration of the Mess Aynak copper mine.
At the same time, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said that during his visit to Kabul, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi and the two sides discussed political, economic, transit and other issues.
During the meeting, Muttaqi said that international investors, including China, could invest in Afghanistan and thereby cooperate with the Afghan people for economic growth and stability in addition to their own interests, with the full support of the Islamic Emirate.
“Afghanistan’s stability is in the interest of the region and the world, and now that the goal has been achieved, it is the responsibility of the international community to strengthen that stability by strengthening the political and economic spheres,” he wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, Mufti Ismatullah Burhan, told Salam Watandar that a delegation from the Islamic Emirate would visit China soon after the Chinese Foreign Minister’s visit to Kabul.
“A delegation of the Islamic Emirate led by Shahabuddin Delawar will visit China, next week, tomorrow or the next day and insha’Allah there are also plans to meet with them and talk to the government,” he said. “I will also meet with the leaders of the embassy in a series of meetings and maybe their delegation will come later.”
This is the first visit of a Chinese foreign minister to Afghanistan since the Islamic Emirate’s rule.
Meanwhile, Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, also arrived in Kabul this afternoon.
ENDS
