ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday warned of catastrophic consequen­ces if the world failed to assist the struggling Afgh­ans and called upon the international community to revisit the policy of not engaging with the Taliban regime.

Mr Qureshi was talking to journalists at the Foreign Office ahead of the 17th extraordinary session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) that begins in Islamabad on Saturday with the senior officials’ meeting. The foreign ministers would meet on Sunday.

A delegation of the Taliban government led by its foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi will also attend the meeting.

The CFM meeting is being held to discuss rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and formulate a strategy for providing humanitarian assistance to it.

United Nations’ agencies estimate that nearly 22.8 million Afghans face crisis level hunger. The World Food Programme has, furthermore, warned that 3.2m children are at the risk of acute malnutrition.

The humanitarian crisis caused by years of conflict and drought in Afghanistan has been exacerbated by economic sanctions and freezing of $9.5 billion of Afghan reserves by the United States following the Taliban takeover.

“If immediate attention is not paid to the humanitarian crisis and the country collapses economically, there could be the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world and all progress made over the past 20 years could be reversed,” Mr Qureshi said.

Missing this opportunity to help Afghans, he said, would lead to exodus of refugees, instability and increased terrorism threat, which would affect not only Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours but also other countries, especially the West.

The participants of the conference, besides, expressing solidarity with Afghanistan are also expected to make pledges of financial and in-kind support. Pakistan, which has been the biggest proponent of world’s engagement with the Taliban, wants the conference to develop “a comprehensive and concerted political approach” to the Afghanistan crisis.

The foreign minister asked the world to revisit its approach of disengagement with the Taliban and weigh the benefits of engaging with the group that currently controls the entire Afghan territory, but lacks international recognition.

He said that he was already seeing signs of an impending thaw between international community and the Taliban regime. “We have travelled to a certain extent from Aug 15 (when Taliban took over Kabul),” he said.

International community engaging with the Taliban on humanitarian assistance, Mr Qureshi emphasised, was the need of the hour.

On the absence of banking channels and sanctions complicating the relief efforts, the foreign minister said a special financial vehicle should be developed to transfer relief money to Afghanistan.

This is one the major expectations from the conference.

The foreign minister asked the OIC to help Afghanistan reboot its financial system, build capacity, and achieve stability.

Arrivals

Delegations have begun arriving in the federal capital for attending the OIC CFM session.

OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha, after reaching here on Friday, said it was high time to think how Muslim countries could help their Afghan brethren at this critical juncture.

He later met with FM Qureshi at the Foreign Office.

President of the Islamic Development Bank Dr Mohammad Sulaiman Al-Jasser, on reaching Islamabad, said participation of OIC ministers in the conference was an expression of their resolve for peace in Afghanistan and Afghan people would soon get the fruits of peace.

Besides OIC members and observers, the Foreign Office said, the UN system, international financial institutions, international and regional organisations and non-OIC members, including P-5 countries, European Union and countries like Japan, and Germany have also been invited.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2021