Uzbekistan is hosting the Fourth Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Afghan Issues that is taking place in the Uzbek city of Samarkand today.
According to some media outlets, top diplomats of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Iran, China and Pakistan are participating in the meeting to discuss issues facing Afghanistan.
IRNA reports that as in previous rounds of talks, no representative from the Taliban will be present at the meeting as most countries of the world have not officially recognized the group as the lawful government of Afghanistan.
The Taliban have reportedly demanded that they be included in the talks.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the meeting’s agenda includes discussion of the steps that the countries of the region need to take to facilitate the political settlement process in Afghanistan, and stabilize the humanitarian, social and economic situation.
The parties may also touch upon Moscow’s idea of creating a five-party G5 platform to resolve the Afghan issue, which would bring together Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also said that the meeting’s participants would pay special attention to regional economic integration and the implementation of transport and energy projects together with Kabul based on the previous agreements. According to media reports, the Taliban’s interim government announced at the end of last year that work to develop the Trans-Afghan railway project, worth US$5 billion, had been completed. It is also possible that the parties would discuss gas supplies. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said last December that Russia might send its natural gas to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s neighbors and Russia last convened in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, in March, where they pledged to meet regularly to discuss the economic and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.
Iran hosted the second round of talks in October 2021, and the third ministerial meeting on Afghan issues was held in China in late March last year.
