Pakistan will host on Saturday a key trilateral meeting involving China and Afghanistan to discuss “peace process and security cooperation”.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is set to host Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani amid reports of an imminent peace accord between the US and Afghan Taliban after months of negotiations, The Express Tribune reported.
The meeting will provide Pakistan with an opportunity to share its perspective with both China and Afghanistan, according to informed sources.
Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councilor Wang Yi and Afghanistan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani will lead their respective delegations.
The dialogue will focus on political relations, Afghanistan peace process, security cooperation and counter-terrorism measures.
This year, the meet is being held at a time when the US is finalising a peace agreement with the Taliban militants to pull out American troops from Afghanistan.
The US seeks the Taliban guarantee they will not allow Afghanistan to become a haven from which extremist groups launch global attacks.
On Thursday, US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad returned to Qatar for further talks with the Taliban as he fine-tunes a deal on withdrawing troops, the State Department said.
“Ambassador Khalilzad has returned to Doha to continue talks,” a State Department spokesperson said, signalling that the two sides were working on a possible peace deal.
The first meeting of the dialogue was held in Beijing in 2017 and the second in Kabul on December 2018.
(With Agencies inputs)