The Chinese Ambassador to Kabul, Wang Yu, in a meeting on Tuesday with the Taliban Interior Minister and the head of the Haqqani Network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, said that his country stands with Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Interior, said the Sirajuddin Haqqani, who carries a $10 million FBI reward for “information leading directly to the [his] arrest”, praised China’s “realistic position” on Afghanistan.
“We believe in good relations. The policy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is that of interaction and understanding, we have good intentions and we expect the same from others,” Haqqani told Wang Yu.
China has kept a close diplomatic and economic relationship with the Taliban since the group’s recapturing of power in August 2021.
The Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, in a recent visit to Islamabad, agreed to extend the Belt and Road Initiative to Afghanistan.
In mid April, a Chinese company offered $10 billion to the Taliban for access to Afghanistan’s large lithium deposits, which according to some estimates is worth $1 trillion. And in January, the group and another Chinese company signed a $540 million deal to extract oil from northern Afghanistan’s Amu Darya basin.
