CGTN published this video item, entitled “Pakistani diplomat: Regional perspective on Afghanistan” – below is their description.
Efforts to form a new Afghan government appear to be picking up steam, as the Taliban urges the holdouts in the north to lay down their arms. They have called on resistance fighters in Panjshir Valley to negotiate a peace settlement. In capital Kabul, Taliban leaders said talks are still underway for an “inclusive” government that will respect people’s rights and freedoms within Islamic law. The group is expected to name a supreme leader soon. How will the new government likely turn out? Will it get international acceptance? For answers, Tian Wei talked to Maleeha Lodhi, who served as Pakistan’s Ambassador at the United Nations in New York and earlier, as ambassador to the U.S. and the UK.
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south; Iran to the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to the north; and China to the northeast.
Occupying 652,000 square kilometers (252,000 sq mi), it is a mountainous country with plains in the north and southwest. Kabul is the capital and largest city. The population is around 32 million, composed mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks.
New York is a state in the northeastern U.S., known for New York City and towering Niagara Falls. NYC’s island of Manhattan is home to the Empire State Building, Times Square and Central Park. The Brooklyn Bridge connects Manhattan with the borough of Brooklyn. The iconic Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor. To the east, Long Island has beaches, the Montauk Lighthouse, the ritzy Hamptons and Fire Island.
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It has a population exceeding 212.2 million, including the world’s second-largest Muslim population. It has an area of 881,913 square kilometres (340,509 square miles).
Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor in the northwest, and also shares a maritime border with Oman.
The Taliban or Taleban, who refer to themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamist movement and military organization in Afghanistan, currently waging war within the country. Since 2016, the Taliban’s leader has been Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada.
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization that aims to maintain international peace and security.
At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; with the addition of South Sudan in 2011, membership is now 193, representing almost all of the world’s sovereign states.
