Humanitarian access urged in Afghanistan

ROME－G20 leaders agreed on Tuesday to work together to avoid a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, as the European Union pledged an aid package of 1 billion euros and host Italy stressed the need to maintain contact with the Taliban.

As the Islamist group held its first face-to-face talks with a US-EU delegation in Qatar, US President Joe Biden, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined a virtual summit on the looming economic and humanitarian crises.

The EU opened the talks by pledging 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), including money for urgent humanitarian needs and for Afghanistan's neighbors who were taking in Afghans fleeing the Taliban.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's special representative Wang Yi said the G20 should give full play to its own advantages to contribute to the peace, stability, prosperity and development of Afghanistan and the region.

Calling on all parties to help Afghanistan cope with the humanitarian crisis, Wang, also Chinese state councilor and foreign minister, said China is accelerating the provision of emergency assistance to Afghanistan worth 200 million yuan ($31 million) in food, winter materials, vaccines and medicines. The first batch of materials has been delivered to Afghanistan.

The international community should promote Afghanistan to embark on an open and inclusive development path, Wang said, adding that unilateral sanctions on Afghanistan should be lifted as soon as possible, and international financial institutions should increase their funding support of Afghanistan's poverty reduction and infrastructure projects.

Afghanistan should be kept away from terrorism, Wang said, calling for the formation of consensus and concerted efforts on various Afghan-related mechanisms.

The Italian government, which holds the G20 presidency, said the aim of the meeting was to address "urgent" humanitarian support for Afghans. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi had been pushing for the G20 meeting since the Taliban takeover in August, insisting debate over solutions must go beyond the Western allies.

Multilateral response

Draghi said the G20 extraordinary leaders' meeting on Afghanistan focused primarily on humanitarian challenges. He said the meeting represented the first multilateral response to the crisis sparked by the August withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and the Taliban's takeover of the country.

The UN has warned that the Afghan economy is on the verge of collapse. Before the Taliban takeover, the country was dependent on international aid that accounted for 75 percent of state spending. It is also grappling with a liquidity crisis as assets remain frozen in the United States and other countries, and disbursements from international organizations have been put on hold.

"We all have nothing to gain if the entire monetary or financial system in Afghanistan is collapsing, because then humanitarian aid can no longer be provided either," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel to reporters in Berlin after the summit.

International aid has been blocked in Afghanistan since the Taliban's return to power following the withdrawal of US and other international troops after 20 years of war.

With the country's assets abroad frozen, rising food prices and unemployment are prompting warnings of a humanitarian disaster once winter arrives.

Ahead of the meeting, China demanded that economic sanctions on Afghanistan be lifted and that frozen Afghan international assets worth billions of dollars be handed back to Kabul. The US and Britain, where many of the assets are being held, have been resisting, with no mention of the matter made in the final statement.

Tuesday's meeting came less than three weeks before the formal G20 leaders summit in Rome at the end of this month, which will focus on climate change, the global economic recovery, tackling malnutrition and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Agencies - Xinhua