A senior delegation of the Taliban government led by the interim Afghanistan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi will arrive in Islamabad today, confirmed the Afghan foreign ministry spokesperson on Wednesday.
“Today a senior delegation of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will reach Islamabad and meet with Pakistani officials as well as participants of Troika Plus meeting,” tweeted Afghanistan foreign ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi.
A senior delegation led by FM Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi will travel to Pakistan on Nov 10.
Delegation will discuss enhancing ties, economy, transit, refugees & expanding facilities for movement of people, & will include Ministers & working groups from Finance & Trade Ministries. pic.twitter.com/FzF3eKWp9Q— Abdul Qahar Balkhi (@QaharBalkhi) November 9, 2021
The spokesperson said that during the visit Taliban’s top diplomat will hold “follow-up discussions” after the Kabul, Moscow Format and other meetings. The meetings will focus on “political, humanitarian and economic issues” being faced by Afghanistan, he said.
A day earlier, the Foreign Office of Pakistan had also confirmed that the Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, Amir Khan Muttaqi, will arrive in Islamabad for a two-day trip.
However, the FO did not mention anything about a “Troika Plus” meeting in its press release. It instead stated the visit is taking place as a follow-up to Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s visit to Kabul on October 21.
“The exchanges will centre on Pakistan-Afghanistan relations with a particular focus on enhanced trade, facilitation of transit trade, cross-border movement, land and aviation links, people-to-people contacts, and regional connectivity,” said the FO.
But a report, published by the wire agency AFP, citing an anonymous Pakistani diplomat confirmed the “Troika Plus” meeting.
The report also stated that the new US special envoy for Afghanistan, Thomas West, diplomats from China and Russia will also be in Pakistan this week for a meeting with the Taliban foreign minister.
It will be Thomas West’s first trip to the region since taking over from Zalmay Khalilzad, the long-serving diplomat who spearheaded the talks that led to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The so-called “troika plus” meeting, due to take place on Thursday in Islamabad, will include the Afghan Taliban’s new foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, a senior Pakistani government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The senior Pakistani official said the meeting is “primarily aimed at… finding ways to avert a humanitarian crisis and to look into possibilities of setting up an inclusive government in Afghanistan”.
The United Nations has repeatedly warned that Afghanistan is on the brink of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than half the country facing “acute” food shortages and winter forcing millions to choose between migration and starvation.
