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China-Afghanistan-Pakistan trilateral meet in Islamabad on Sep 7

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Press Trust of India Islamabad

The third round of the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Foreign Ministers' Dialogue will be held here on Saturday amid reports that the US and the Taliban militants are close to signing a peace deal to end the brutal war in Afghanistan.

The Foreign Office of Pakistan said the meeting will be held under the chairmanship of Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councilor Wang Yi and Afghanistan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani will lead their respective delegations.

The dialogue was first held in Beijing in 2017, followed by the second meet in Kabul in December 2018.

The dialogue will focus on political relations, Afghanistan peace process, security cooperation and counter terrorism measures.

 

The foreign office said Pakistan attaches highest importance to the dialogue as it is a political trust building, development and cooperation exercise.

This year, the meet is being held at a time when the US is finalising a peace agreement with the Taliban militants to pull out American troops from Afghanistan.

The US seeks the Taliban guarantee they will not allow Afghanistan to become a haven from which extremist groups launch global attacks.

On Thursday, US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad returned to Qatar for further talks with the Taliban as he fine-tunes a deal on withdrawing troops, the State Department said.

"Ambassador Khalilzad has returned to Doha to continue talks," a State Department spokesperson said, signalling that the two sides were working on a possible peace deal.

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First Published: Sep 06 2019 | 8:10 PM IST

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