Chinese Foreign Minister to visit Pakistan this week for strategic talks

Islamabad: Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang will travel to Pakistan this week on a maiden visit during which he will hold strategic talks with the country's top officials and is expected to attend a trilateral meeting involving Afghanistan, according to a media report.

The Chinese leader would land in Islamabad on May 5 immediately after attending the SCO Foreign Ministers' Meet 2023 in India.

Dunya News channel reported quoting sources that the Qin would hold strategic talks with Pakistani officials during the visit on May 6.

Pakistan and China are also expected to hold a trilateral meeting with Afghanistan to discuss the regional situation.

The moot would be held in Islamabad and it would be attended by interim Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

A UN Security Council committee on Monday agreed to allow the Muttaqi to travel to Pakistan from Afghanistan next week to meet with the foreign ministers of Pakistan and China, diplomats said.

Muttaqi has long been subjected to a travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo under Security Council sanctions.

Chinese and Pakistani officials have both said in the past that they would welcome Taliban-led Afghanistan into the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project, part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

Afghanistan sits as a key geographical trade and transit route between South and Central Asia and has billions of dollars of untapped mineral resources. The Taliban seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces withdrew after 20 years of war.

The Security Council committee allowed Muttaqi to travel to Uzbekistan last month for a meeting of the foreign ministers of neighbouring countries of Afghanistan to discuss urgent peace, security, and stability matters.