China praises Taliban as important military and political force in Afghanistan

TIL Desk/World/Beijing/ China on Wednesday feted Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, praising the insurgent group as an “important military and political force” in Afghanistan and asked it to make a “clean break” with all terrorist groups, especially the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) – the Uyghur Muslim militant group from Xinjiang.

Amid deepening concerns here over the regrouping of the ETIM, blamed by Beijing for all the violent attacks in its volatile Xinjiang province and elsewhere in the country, Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Mullah Baradar at Tianjin and sought to prevail on him to build a “positive image and establish a broad and inclusive political structure that suits Afghanistan’s national realities”.

Most importantly for Beijing, with reports of the ETIM militants who fought till recently in the Syrian war along with the Islamic State (IS) regrouping in Afghanistan, Wang’s emphasis was that the Taliban which is rapidly advancing in Afghanistan ahead of the complete withdrawal of the US forces should not allow the Uygur militants in the war-torn country.