CPEC to be extended to Kabul

ISLAMABAD: Completely sidelining the United States and moving forward, three regional countries on Tuesday took matters in their own hands, where Afghanistan was convinced to join the $57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with Kabul and Islamabad also vowing to improve bilateral relations and expressing commitment to eliminate terrorism. They invited the Afghan Taliban to be part of the regional peace process.

These far-reaching decisions were taken during the trilateral meeting in Beijing among Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi, Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani and Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif. A joint press release of the “1st China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue” was made available to the media by the Foreign Office, which sees that the three countries inspired by the meeting have now agreed that the “2nd China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue” will be held in Kabul in 2018.

A lot of time was spent while discussing counter terrorism and it was agreed that the three sides will communicate and consult on developing “Memorandum of Understanding on Counter-Terrorism Cooperation.”

Beijing stressed that dialogue with the Afghan Taliban is a natural phenomenon among the three countries and all the three are working towards maintaining security in the region. In the past, the Afghan Taliban have had several rounds of talks with China. The Foreign Office says the three foreign ministers agreed to jointly work on mutual political trust and reconciliation, development cooperation and connectivity, security cooperation and counter-terrorism as three topics of the trilateral cooperation.

Convincing Kabul to join CPEC has not been easy, especially since on 24th October President Ashraf Ghani had made a hawkish statement in Delhi saying that there was an issue of “sovereignty” which had been raised by India regarding CPEC and if Afghanistan was not given transit access to Wagah and Attari for trade with India via Pakistan, then Kabul will also restrict Islamabad's access to Central Asia.

However, on Tuesday, the joint statement stated, “The three sides reaffirmed their commitment to improving their relations, deepening mutually beneficial cooperation, advancing connectivity under the Belt and Road Initiative, and fighting terrorism in all its forms and manifestations without any distinction.”

However, a cautious approach is being taken before extending the CPEC to Afghanistan, with Beijing saying that the three countries will have to reach a gradual consensus, tackling easier, smaller projects first.

Khawaja Asif observed, “The successful implementation of CPEC projects will serve as a model for enhancing connectivity and cooperation through similar projects with neighbouring countries, including Afghanistan, Iran and with Central and West Asia.”

“The three sides agreed to conduct win-win trilateral economic cooperation, with an incremental approach, starting from the easier initiative to the more difficult ones. The three sides agreed to continue economic development cooperation in areas of mutual interest, and expressed willingness to strengthen people-to-people contacts,” read the joint statement.

The three regional countries are going to try once again to restart the failed intra-Afghan peace talks which have not moved since 2015.

“The three sides reaffirmed that a broad-based and inclusive peace and reconciliation process, which is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and fully supported regionally and internationally, is the most viable solution to end violence in Afghanistan. In this regard, they call on the Afghan Taliban to join the peace process at an early date,” said the joint press statement.

Counter terrorism is also part of the understanding that the three sides agreed to. The three sides reiterated their firm resolve to fight the menace of terrorism. “They expressed their strong determination not to allow any country, organisation or individual to use their respective territories for terrorist activities against any other countries,” read the joint statement.

The three sides also agreed to strengthen counter-terrorism coordination and cooperation in an effort to combat all terrorist organisations and individuals without any discrimination.