The foreign ministers of China and Afghanistan are in Islamabad to attend a trilateral meeting with the host state. Qin Gang, who is on his first trip to Pakistan, and Amir Khan Muttaqi will also hold bilateral talks with their Pakistani counterpart. Muttaqi, who has long been under a travel ban, arms embargo and asset freeze, was granted a travel exemption by the UN Security Council earlier this month to visit Pakistan. He last toured the country in 2021. Earlier this week, the United Nations hosted a conference on Afghanistan in Doha to which the Taliban wasn’t invited. On Muttaqi’s Pakistan visit, the Afghan foreign ministry has said it wants to hold talks on a range of matters, including political and economic relations, regional security and transit trade. There has been a surge in violence in Pakistan’s provinces that border Afghanistan and Pakistan has accused the terror group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), of launching those attacks from Afghan territory.
