A consultative meeting of the Taliban administration with representatives from Central Asian countries began on Sunday, March 5, in Kabul. According to officials, the meeting focuses on political, economic, and security cooperation between Afghanistan and regional countries.<\/p>\n
Amir Khan Metqi, acting foreign minister of the Taliban administration, said in his opening speech that relations between Afghanistan and Central Asian countries are based on opportunities, cooperation, and regional convergence rather than confrontation. He stressed that these countries hold a special place in the Taliban\u2019s foreign policy.<\/p>\n
Metqi stated that the Taliban\u2019s foreign policy is founded on balance, economic orientation, Islamic brotherhood, good neighborliness, and mutual respect. This comes while, despite several years since the Taliban\u2019s return to power, many regional and global countries have yet to officially recognize the administration, and official interactions remain limited.<\/p>\n
The acting foreign minister also referred to ongoing talks with Pakistan, noting that Taliban representatives have engaged in China-initiated discussions with a solution-oriented approach. He added that Kabul seeks to resolve disputes through understanding and dialogue but reserves the right to defend its territorial integrity and people.<\/p>\n
On the economic front, Metqi described the transit of energy from Central Asia to South Asia through Afghanistan as a top priority. He said that 25 kilometers of pipeline construction for the TAP (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) project along the Herat border with Turkmenistan has been completed, and 120 more kilometers are ready for construction. Additionally, the CASA-1000 project, involving Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, has seen significant progress, he stated.<\/p>\n
The TAP and CASA-1000 projects are major regional initiatives that, if fully realized, could positively impact Afghanistan\u2019s energy situation and transit revenues. However, insecurity, lack of transparency, and political challenges remain concerns consistently raised regarding the full implementation of these projects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taliban\u2019s acting foreign minister Metqi highlights regional cooperation, ongoing Pakistan talks, and progress on TAP and CASA-1000 energy projects in Central Asia summit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}