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Afghanistan ‘ready to be included’ in major regional projects
Afghanistan stakeholders have said that with improved security in the country since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) takeover, the country is now more than ready to be included in major regional projects, including China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative.
The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is part of the One Belt One Road or New Silk Road initiative, which includes a land trade route from China to Pakistan’s Gwadar port.
The project includes two highways, two railway lines and a major hydroelectricity dam on the Kunar River.
The idea is to lay a road linking Pakistan’s Peshawar to Kabul and also to Kunduz and then further into Central Asia. Railway lines are expected to run from Landi-Kotal in Pakistan to Afghanistan’s Jalalabad, and also from Pakistan’s Chaman to Spin Boldak in Afghanistan.
China’s economic growth in previous years has made the countries participating in the One Belt One Road initiative optimistic and perceive the project to be comparable to China’s development of Shenzhen city, which conceptualized in 1980, has since grown into a metropolis in less than 30 years with a population of ten million.
Now, analysts are hoping Afghanistan will become part of another key undertaking by China – the One Belt One Road initiative.
“If this project (One Belt One Road) was not done through Afghanistan, I don’t think that the project would be very successful; if Afghanistan was not included, if this road passes through other routes, naturally, Afghanistan will not be a connecting point, and people’s perception will be that Afghanistan is not a connecting point but a season point,” said Imam Mohammad Warimach, former deputy minister of transport for Afghanistan.
The One Belt One Road is expected to start from the city of Xi An, in China and cross many Asian countries to Europe and Africa.
Afghan experts believe that China has adopted a new economy-oriented policy on Afghanistan.
“The government of Afghanistan and the continuous security crisis in this country have not given us the opportunity to have a proper awareness of the One Belt One Road Initiative, but China, as a close neighbor of Afghanistan, is trying to bring this country into an international economic cycle,” said Nazir Kabiri, researcher at Biruni Institute, a research organization in Kabul.
The One Belt One Road initiative will reportedly cover 65 countries – home to about 60% of the world’s population – and the cost of which will be about $4 trillion across 900 different projects.
“China is the world champion in the infrastructure sector, strong infrastructure has been built in China, which has a very high capacity, many raw materials are not needed in China and this is a unique opportunity for the Chinese to export them,” said Sebastian Heilmann founding director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
Considering the economic problems that Afghanistan is facing, Afghan experts believe that the country should be included in China’s One Belt One Road initiative, as it will help accelerate the construction of infrastructure, gain geographical advantages, and turn Afghanistan into an economically developed country.
In addition, while Afghanistan contends with an economic crisis, no country has yet recognized the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) government. However, the IEA is trying to overcome problems by focusing on infrastructure and economic development projects as well as establishing strong ties with foreign countries, analysts have said.
Baradar meets with envoy
This comes after Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund, the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, met with China’s Ambassador to Kabul Wang Yu on Wednesday and called on Beijing to include Afghanistan in the “One Belt One Road” initiative.
According to a statement released by Baradar’s office, the focus of the meeting was on the implementation of key economic projects that have been agreed upon by the two countries.
Meanwhile, Wang stated that his country “wants to deepen its ties with Afghanistan and supports the new government in any situation.”
The Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan announced on Friday that the country has allocated $19.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Japanese Embassy said it hopes the aid will help bring positive change to the lives of vulnerable Afghans.
According to the statement, the assistance will cover the basic humanitarian needs of vulnerable communities in Afghanistan.
The embassy added that the aid will be delivered through United Nations agencies, international organizations, and Japanese non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan.
Japan’s total assistance to Afghanistan since August 2021 has reached more than $549 million.
Security forces at the Islam Qala border in Herat province prevented hundreds of young Afghans from illegally entering Iran.
Officials from the 207 Al-Farooq Army Corps said that around 530 people attempted over the past two days to illegally enter Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district in Herat, but border forces detained them and transferred them back to their original areas.
Meanwhile, officials in the local administration of Herat said that due to severe cold along the illegal migration route to Iran, three Afghan migrants have lost their lives in the Kohsan district of the province, and a shepherd has also died there for the same reason.
Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, spokesperson for the Herat governor’s office, said that some statistics and images shared on social media regarding the incident are not reliable.
According to him, further investigations are underway to determine whether any individuals have died on the other side of the border.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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