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China will not take the lead in recognising Afghanistan's Taliban government and will only do so in a concerted move with Pakistan, Russia and Iran, an expert familiar with China's foreign policy considerations told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August and set up an interim government in September with old guard Islamists in top posts.

No country has formally recognised the Taliban government though China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, met members of the interim government in Qatar this week.

"Things will be different when the four countries of China, Pakistan, Russia and Iran arrive at a consensus on this. We will not be the first," said Hu Shisheng, a South Asian expert at China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICR), the official think-tank of China's national security apparatus.

Speaking at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, a security forum organised by an official think-tank of the military to promote China's views on security, Hu gave a rare insight into China’s calculations on Afghanistan.

He anticipated that the United States would, after withdrawing from Afghanistan, want to strengthen military cooperation with India, and that could make India more "adventurous" and prone to risk-taking when dealing with China.

China and India have been uneasy neighbours for decades. Their troops clashed on a disputed section of their Himalayan border in June last year and remain locked in a standoff.

"New skirmishes cannot be totally ruled out," Hu said.

Hu also said there were international expectations that the Taliban would stop the spread of Islamist militancy and prevent a slide back into chaos, which would have an impact on China and its regional "belt and road" development plans.

He also raised concern that the United States could direct resources to creating "disturbances" for China in areas such as the South China Sea, Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.

"The United States invested $2 trillion in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. Even if it only diverts $50 billion ... China's going to feel a lot of pressure."

After pulling out of Afghanistan, the United States is in talks with countries in the region, including India, to set up bases for counter-terrorism operations.

This also worries China.

"The U.S. says the bases are for fighting Afghan terrorists, but it could have other motives related to China and Russia," Du Nongyi, vice chairman of the China Institute for International Strategic Studies, a research arm of the foreign ministry, told Reuters.

"Central Asia is Russia's backyard. We can't let the United States have a foothold." (Reuters)

Officials from Turkmenistan will visit Kabul this week to discuss continuing work on the TAPI pipeline linking the energy-rich Central Asian country through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India, the Taliban government said on Wednesday.

The pipeline is expected to carry 33 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas each year along a route stretching 1,800 km (1,125 miles) from Galkynysh, the world's second-biggest gas field, to the Indian city of Fazilka near the Pakistan border.

"We have been working hard for some time and we are ready to take pride in starting work on the TAPI project," Mohammad Issa Akhund, the acting minister of mines and petroleum in the new Taliban government, said in a statement.

The Afghan stretch of the pipeline will run from the northwestern border with Turkmenistan, south through the western city of Herat to Kandahar near the border with Pakistan.

Akhund met the ambassador of Turkmenistan ahead of a two-day visit by a delegation from the country that will start from Saturday, the statement said.

The project was launched in Afghanistan in 2018, when the Taliban was fighting the Western-backed government in Kabul, but it pledged its cooperation for a project it hailed as a key future element of the economic infrastructure.

Afghanistan, which suffers chronic energy shortages, is expected to take 5% of the gas itself, with the rest divided equally between Pakistan and India. In addition, Kabul should earn hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees. (Reuters)

 Afghanistan's Taliban is eager to have dialogue with the international community, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi virtually said at a conference held in Iran.

"The Taliban is eager to have dialogue with the world ... China will host the third Neighbours of Afghanistan meeting at the appropriate time," Wang said in a pre-recorded message broadcast live by Iranian state TV.

The Chinese foreign minister also urged the international community to help Afghanistan's development. (Reuters)

Pakistan's interior minister said on Tuesday the government was ready to consider the demands of a banned Islamist group that has threatened to march on the capital Islamabad, but could not accept their call for the French ambassador to be expelled.

Thousands of activists from the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) movement have blocked Pakistan's busiest road, demanding the release of their leader and the expulsion of France's ambassador over the publication by a satirical magazine of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

"We are ready for everything but their number one demand to expel the French ambassador, that is difficult for us," Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad told reporters at a news conference. "We want to request them to review it."

The demonstrators have camped near the town of Muridke on the Grand Trunk Road leading to Islamabad, continuing a protest that saw clashes in the eastern city of Lahore on Friday in which three police were killed. read more

He appealed to the group, which has paralyzed the capital in previous protest marches, to avoid creating a law-and-order situation in Islamabad ahead of a conference of foreign ministers from Islamic countries.

On Tuesday night, TLP announced it would start its march toward the capital unless the government honored its commitment.

"In case demands are not implemented in accordance with the negotiations, the TLP march will head out from Muridke to Islamabad," the group said in a statement.

Following violent clashes in April, authorities designated TLP a terrorist movement and arrested its leader Saad Rizvi, who has been in detention ever since. (Reuters)