China to Host Afghanistan's Neighbors to Review Post-Taliban Situation

Islamabad — 

Pakistan said Friday foreign ministers of six immediate neighbors of Afghanistan will gather in China next month to discuss economic and humanitarian upheavals facing the Taliban-ruled, conflict-torn country.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad that his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, will also attend the Beijing-hosted two-day meeting starting March 30.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi gestures while addressing the members of the media in Islamabad, Feb. 25, 2022.

Qureshi said the discussions would focus on ways to protect the Afghan people from the humanitarian crisis and prevent an economic meltdown in Afghanistan.

“If there is, God forbid, an economic meltdown (in Afghanistan), its repercussions will hit not only Pakistan but other neighboring countries and the region at large,” Qureshi cautioned.

The gathering in China will be the third such dialogue among Afghanistan’s neighbors, including China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, since the Taliban takeover of the country in August.

Islamabad initiated and hosted the inaugural session of the process in September after the Taliban militarily seized power from the now-defunct Western-backed Afghan government and U.S.-led international forces withdrew from the country.

Tehran hosted the second foreign ministers’ meeting in late October.

Trilateral on sideline

A senior Pakistani Foreign Ministry official told VOA that Taliban leaders will be invited to the two-day discussions in China to allow them to directly share their assessment of the latest Afghan situation.

The official, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media, said a trilateral dialogue involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and China will also be held on the sidelines of the meeting.

He said Chinese and Pakistani officials are expected to discuss and propose economic connectivity projects to Taliban delegates under an ongoing mega-infrastructure development program China is funding in Pakistan. The official did not share further details.

FILE – Passengers ride in a newly built Orange Line Metro Train, a metro project planned under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a day after an official opening in the eastern city of Lahore, Oct. 26, 2020.

The program, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is hailed as a flagship of Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative. It has built roads, power plants and other infrastructure projects in Pakistan with Chinese investments over the past seven years.

“The two sides are ready to discuss with Afghanistan the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan,” read a joint statement issued at the end of wide-ranging bilateral talks President Xi Jinping hosted with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing earlier this month.

Taliban legitimacy

When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan six months ago, wide-ranging international sanctions dating back to the Islamist group’s first time in power from 1996 to 2001 followed.

Washington and other Western nations also suspended financial aid to Kabul and immediately froze billions of dollars in the Afghan central bank’s assets, mostly held in the U.S.

The restrictions have pushed the country’s heavily aid-dependent economy to the brink of collapse, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where the United Nations estimates around 23 million people, or 55 percent of the population, face acute hunger.

FILE – Afghan men stand in a queue for a program offered by Afghanistan’s Taliban government to tackle hunger, offering thousands of people wheat in exchange for labor, in Dasht-e-Padula of southern Kabul, Oct. 24, 2021.

Foreign countries, including immediate neighbors, have not recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan.

The global community wants the hardline group to govern Afghanistan through a broad-based ruling system that represents all Afghan ethnicities, respects human rights, including women’s rights to education and work, and disallows terrorists from using the country for cross-border attacks.

Taliban leaders dismiss criticism of their government, saying it is representative of all Afghans, and women are being given access to education as well as work in accordance with Islamic Sharia law. They also claim no terrorist groups are being allowed to use the country for international attacks, assertions disputed by foreign officials and independent critics.

The Taliban under the previous government had banned females from education and work and harbored the al-Qaida terrorist network blamed for orchestrating the September 2001 attacks on the United States.

Cartagena: couple receives complaints from their neighbors for "very noisy sex" - Other Cities - Colombia

A Cartagena couple and their sentimental partner demand their right to have sex in the privacy of their apartment and ensure that the neighbors and administration of the building where they live persecute them for express your sexual passion on the privacy of your home.

This mess of horizontal property is presented in the Gemini building apartmentfrom the exclusive sector sky seain Cartagena de Indias.

(Also: ‘Caciques’ and old political practices in search of Chamber for Bolívar)

In dialogue with EL TIEMPO, the young woman, who asks to reserve her name, assured that last Saturday she came to live with her sentimental partner in the Gemini building, as they were delighted with the beautiful view that it offers of the Caribbean Sea and the Ciénaga de la Virgen.

public ridicule

What the administration did with this public ridicule without a previous legal process of co-ownership, that violates due process and violation of human dignity and the good name of the person

“Last Tuesday night, after 8 pm, in the privacy of our home, we made love to my partner, as we always have. But, suddenly, the security guard calls us to tell us that a neighbor is upset because hear screams and moans”, says the young woman, who put the case in the hands of her lawyer.

But the claims of this young woman go further and assures that from the administration of the building they have singled her out and humiliated her in front of others. residents of the Gemini building.

“First, they shouldn’t have called to interrupt us. But, furthermore, the next day the administrator came up, with several employees, which is demeaning, to scold me because according to her I couldn’t be intimate with my boyfriend in my room and told me that I ‘I have to control‘”, recounts the young woman, and adds: “They can’t make me feel guilty for enjoying my sexuality“.

According to the complainant, her neighbors have been recording audios with the sexual expressions of the couple. “The most delicate thing is that there is a neighbor who records our intimacy, she is spying on us and share the audios by WhatsApp“, he maintains.

(Also: Teachers from Tolima lifted the strike and returned to classes)

In dialogue with this newspaper, Viviana Navarro, administrator of the Geminis building, assures that the only thing that is required of the young couple is that they measure their sexual expressions so as not to interrupt the peace and rest of the families, with children, of the 105 apartments. of the private property.

“This is an exclusive complex and we have never experienced scandals of this nature. And I have the duty to mediate between the residents, and if this occurs in the first week of these people living together, what can we expect from the whole year of contract that this couple signed?”, expressed Navarro.

According to the complainant, in the last hours the administration made her sentimental partner understand that “it is better that we leave the building.”

Violation of human dignity and the good name of the person

The most delicate thing is that there is a neighbor who records our intimacy, she is spying on us and they share the audios on WhatsApp

According to the young today he is the target of stares, ridicule and malicious comments from neighbors and building officialsreason for which he resorted to a lawyer to defend his rights to the intimacy, honor and good name.

“Today we will file a written complaint with the co-ownership council of the building, because the administrator violated due process: when you live in co-ownership there is a regulation that governs everything that must happen in that co-ownership. The administrator could not have made a reprimand and less in front of witnesses in a matter as sensitive as the sexual intimacy of people, “says Joaquín Torres, the young woman’s lawyer.

(Also: Crisis worsens in El Charco, Nariño: there are three mayors in six months)

According to the lawyer, the regular conduct in this type of situation is to inform the co-ownership council so that an investigation can be carried out in accordance with the co-ownership statutes and regulations, and a sanction be established.

“What the administration did is a public mockery without a prior legal process of co-ownership, that violates due process and is a violation of human dignity and the good name of the person, and it is about fundamental rights,” concludes the lawyer. Towers.

Cartagena

More news in Colombia

Unusual: young man in Chocó used a banana to rob people

Key witness in the Vives case has not received the reward that was promised