Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin today announced that Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi will visit Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan over July 12-16, at the invitation of the foreign ministers of those three nations which form the northern border with Afghanistan. Wang Yi will also attend the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers; the foreign ministers meeting of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group. They will confer and release a joint statement, said Wang Wenbin.
In February, Uzbekistan announced it would organize a conference on “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity, Challenges and Opportunities,” as an initiative of the President of Uzbekistan, with the idea for Tashkent to become a starting point for building stable and sustainable interconnection in the region of Central and South Asia. On March 30, the Uzbek authorities also invited the Chinese delegation to the high-level international conference. Reportedly, it will be attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, as well as President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, and Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, and sponsor Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
