China, Pak want Afghanistan to join economic corridor

China and Pakistan will look at extending their $57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday.

India has looked askance at the project as parts of it run through Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir, though Wang said the plan had nothing to do with territorial disputes.

Speaking after the first trilateral meeting between the foreign ministers of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Wang said China hoped the corridor, part of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative linking China with Asia, Europe and beyond, could benefit the whole region and act as an impetus for development.

Afghanistan has urgent need to develop and improve people’s lives and hopes it can join interconnectivity initiatives, Wang told reporters, as he announced that Pakistan and Afghanistan had agreed to mend strained ties.

“So China and Pakistan are willing to look at with Afghanistan, on the basis of win-win, mutually beneficial principles, using an appropriate means to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan,” Wang said.

How that could happen needs the three countries to reach a gradual consensus, tackling easier, smaller projects first, he said, without elaborating.AGENCIES

BEIJING:

AP (From left) Afghanistan foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and Pakistan foreign minister Khawaja Asif in Beijing on Tuesday.