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Afghanistan should not be excluded from international community: China

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China’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday that Afghanistan should not be excluded from the international community and the Afghan people’s well-being should receive due attention.

“As a traditional friendly neighbor of Afghanistan, we always believe that Afghanistan should not be excluded from the international community. Afghan people’s well-being should receive due attention,” Wang Wenbin said during his regular briefing when asked whether China would help the Afghan side gain international recognition if the Islamic Emirate “truly delivers” on its pledge to fight terrorism.

Wang said Afghanistan’s reconstruction process should be encouraged, and its sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected.

“We also note the world’s concerns and expectations for the interim government, including with regard to adopting prudent and moderate policies protecting women and children’s rights and interests and taking a firmer stance on counter-terrorism,” he added.

Referring to the joint statement issued at the end of last week’s 5th China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue held in Islamabad, he said it reflected the consensus reached and trust for deeper cooperation in political development and security domains.

“As you said, this is the first multilateral document that has the participation of the Afghan interim government. And it is also the first time that the Afghan Taliban (IEA) made an explicit written pledge denouncing terrorism especially the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM),” he added.

The spokesperson termed it of great significance to the future of China-Afghanistan relations and regional counter-terrorism and security cooperation.

He pointed out that the fifth dialogue was the first formal dialogue among the foreign ministers of the three countries since the Islamic Emirate’s takeover in August 2021.

”The dialogue plays an important role in advancing good neighborly friendship and practical cooperation among the three countries and contributes to the political settlement of the Afghan issue and galvanize international efforts for stability and development in Afghanistan,” he added.

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Afghan border forces prevent illegal entry of hundreds into Iran

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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, some sources said that a group of 70 people who were heading to Iran on Wednesday through areas of Kohsan district became stranded amid cold weather and snowfall, resulting in the deaths of two of them.

Sources at the Islam Qala border in Herat also confirmed that in recent days hundreds of people have illegally entered Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district, and that due to severe cold and heavy snowfall, five of them have lost their lives.

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US pauses green card lottery program after Brown University shooting

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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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Dozens of U.S. lawmakers oppose Afghan immigration freeze after Washington shooting

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Sixty-one members of the U.S. Congress have urged the Trump administration to reverse its decision to halt immigration processing for Afghan nationals, warning that the move unfairly targets Afghan nationals following a deadly shooting involving two National Guard members.

In a letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the lawmakers said the incident should not be used to vilify Afghans who are legally seeking entry into the United States. They stressed that Afghan applicants undergo extensive vetting involving multiple U.S. security agencies.

The letter criticized the suspension of Special Immigrant Visa processing, the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan, and broader travel and asylum restrictions, warning that such policies endanger Afghan allies who supported U.S. forces during the war.

 “Exploiting this tragedy to sow division and inflame fear will not make America safer. Abandoning those who made the courageous choice to stand beside us signals to those we may need as allies in the future that we cannot be trusted to honor our commitments. That is a mistake we cannot afford,” the group said.

The U.S. admitted nearly 200,000 Afghan nationals in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S. military and their families still wait at military bases and refugee camps around the world for a small number of SIVs.

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