Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang will visit Pakistan this week to hold strategic talks with the country’s top officials. He is also expected to attend a trilateral meeting involving Afghanistan. Qin will land in Islamabad on May 5 after attending the SCO Foreign Ministers’ Meet 2023 in India. The visit will take place on May 6, and Pakistan and China are expected to hold a trilateral meeting with Afghanistan to discuss the regional situation.

The moot would be held in Islamabad and it would be attended by interim Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. A UN Security Council Committee agreed to allow Muttaqi to travel to Pakistan from Afghanistan next week to meet with the foreign ministers of Pakistan and China. Chinese and Pakistani officials have both said in the past that they would welcome Taliban-led Afghanistan into the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project.

Afghanistan is a key geographical trade and transit route between South and Central Asia and has billions of dollars of untapped mineral resources. The Taliban seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces withdrew after 20 years of war. The Security Council committee allowed Muttaqi to travel to Uzbekistan last month for a meeting of the foreign ministers of neighbouring countries of Afghanistan to discuss urgent peace, security, and stability matters.