KABUL
\nThe Taliban will attend China\u2019s Belt and Road Forum next week, a spokesman said on Saturday, underscoring Beijing\u2019s growing official ties with the administration, despite its lack of formal recognition by any government.
\nTaliban officials and ministers have at times travelled to regional meetings, mostly those focussed on Afghanistan, but the Belt and Road Forum is among the highest-profile multilateral summits it has been invited to attend.
\nThe forum in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday marks the 10th anniversary of President Xi Jinping\u2019s ambitious global infrastructure and energy initiative, billed as recreating the ancient Silk Road to boost global trade.
\nThe Taliban\u2019s acting minister for commerce and industry, Haji Nooruddin Azizi, will travel to Beijing in the coming days, ministry spokesman Akhundzada Abdul Salam Jawad said in a text message to Reuters.
\n\u201cHe will attend and will invite large investors\u201d to Afghanistan, he said.
\nThe impoverished country could offer a wealth of coveted mineral resources. A mines minister estimated in 2010 that Afghanistan had untapped deposits, ranging from copper to gold and lithium, worth between $1 trillion and $3 trillion. It is not clear how much they are worth today.
\nChina has been in talks with the Taliban over plans, begun under the previous foreign-backed government, over a possible huge copper mine in eastern Afghanistan.
\nChina\u2019s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\nAzizi will continue discussions in Beijing on plans to build a road through the Wakhan corridor, a thin, mountainous strip in northern Afghanistan, to provide direct access to China, Akhundzada said.
\nOfficials from China, the Taliban and neighbouring Pakistan said in May they would like Belt and Road to include Afghanistan and for the flagship China Pakistan Economic Corridor to be extended across the border to Afghanistan.
\nThe Taliban has not been formally recognised by any government since taking control of Afghanistan two years ago as U.S. and other foreign forces withdrew.
\nA series of restrictions on women\u2019s access to public life and the barring of many female NGO staff from work has increased roadblocks to recognition, especially by Western countries, officials and international relations analysts say.
\nChina has boosted engagement with the Taliban, becoming the first country to appoint an ambassador to Kabul since the Taliban took power, and invested in mining projects.
\nBeijing\u2019s ambassador presented his credentials to the Taliban\u2019s acting prime minister last month. Other nations have kept on previous ambassadors or appointed heads of mission in a charge d\u2019affaires capacity that does not involve formally presenting credentials to the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KABUL The Taliban will attend China\u2019s Belt and Road Forum next week, a spokesman said on Saturday, underscoring Beijing\u2019s growing official ties with the administration, despite its lack of formal recognition by any government. Taliban officials and ministers have at times travelled to regional meetings, mostly those focussed on Afghanistan, but the Belt and Road […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-361676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n