Beijing, 13 Oct

China on Monday urged Pakistan and Afghanistan to exercise restraint and resolve their mutual concerns through dialogue and consultations, after dozens of soldiers from both sides were killed in intense clashes along the border between the two neighbours.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are both friendly neighbours of China. The two countries are and will always be neighbours of each other, Chinese Foreign Minister Lin Jian told a media briefing here.

Upholding good-neighbourliness and the friendly ties, pursuing economic and social development and jointly combating terrorism serve the fundamental and long-term interests of both sides, he said.

China sincerely hopes that the two countries will, in light of the larger interests, stay cool-headed and exercise restraint, properly address each other’s concerns through dialogue and consultation, avoid any escalation, and together work for the peace and stability of the countries and the wider region, he said.

“We have requested both sides to take concrete measures to ensure the safety and security of Chinese personnel, projects and institutions there,” he said.

The Pakistan Army said on Sunday that at least 23 of its soldiers and over 200 Taliban and affiliated terrorists were killed in intense overnight clashes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as tensions escalated between the two neighbours.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, said that 58 Pakistani soldiers were killed and around 30 others wounded in the attacks.

China maintains close ties with Pakistan and Afghanistan through a tripartite mechanism, conducting periodic meetings to iron out differences over Islamabad’s repeated allegations against Kabul of hosting Pakistan’s militant groups, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)and Baloch Liberation Army (BLA).

Significantly, Mujahid said the operation was halted at midnight following requests from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, while China’s reaction came well after the two sides ended the firing.

In his reaction to the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict, Lin has not commented on the Taliban interim government’s foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit to India.

Analysts say that Muttaqi’s visit to India and Taliban’s move to scale up its ties with New Delhi also creates a sense of unease in Beijing.

Since Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021 after the US troops vacated the country, China, which also shares border with it, has established close ties with Taliban, highlighting its own concern over Islamic militant groups, especially the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, fighting for the separation of the Uygur Muslim majority province of Xinjiang.

The steady deterioration of Taliban-Pakistan relations over the presence of TTP and BLA militants has made Beijing’s role difficult despite offers to the Taliban government to link up the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as the hostilities escalated into a full-scale border conflict.

Instead, the Taliban government reportedly proposed a direct corridor between China and Afghanistan through the Wakhan Corridor connecting both countries, according to Afghan media reports.