The Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, said on Sunday that he had met the Chinese Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Yue Xiaoyong, to discuss Afghanistan following the meeting between the two countries’s presidents in Beijing last week.
“We reiterated the expansion of Beijing-Tehran cooperation for bringing about a lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan and discussed the ways how to cooperate,” Qomi said in a tweet in Persian.
In a joint-statement, at the end of the Iranian president’s visit to China, the two sides called on the Taliban to end restrictions on women’s work and education and form an inclusive government with the participation of all Afghanistan’s ethnic groups.
“Both sides called on the Taliban to form an inclusive government in which all ethnic groups and political parties actually participate, and cancel all discriminatory measures against women, ethnic minorities and other religions,” the statement said, adding that the US and its NATO allies “should be responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan.”
China and Iran have kept their respective embassies open in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and have repeatedly expressed interest in expanding their political, economic, and development involvement in Afghanistan.
