The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, made a surprise visit to Pakistan yesterday in order to “follow in situ the evolution of the Afghan crisis and discuss with the protagonists the search for solutions”, according to the Ministry.
The reason for this visit, the first by a Spanish Foreign Minister since the establishment of diplomatic relations more than 70 years ago, is “to demonstrate in practice and on the ground the efforts to achieve the objective of leaving no one behind,” the Department continued in a press release.
Albares met in Islamabad with his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, with whom he held a joint press conference in which he announced that Spain will commit this Monday, during the Donors’ Conference on Afghanistan (in which he himself will participate by videoconference), to contribute funds to address the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. The Spanish contribution, the amount of which he did not specify, responds to the 510 million euros requested by the United Nations to the international community to meet the needs in Afghanistan during the next four months.
“Spain will assist and we will commit funds, we will make promises,” declared Albares in reference to the Conference, convened by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. He also assured that the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) “is ready to help the Afghans”. Nearly 20 million Afghans currently depend on foreign aid to survive. In addition, the renewed fighting that ended with the military victory of the Taliban in Kabul has generated more than 570,000 internally displaced persons, a number that could rise to 750,000 this year.
During his stay in Pakistan, where he was accompanied by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs, Angeles Moreno Bau, Albares was also received by the Chief of Defense Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and by the Prime Minister, Imran Khan, with whom he discussed the possibility of opening new avenues of collaboration for the evacuation of Afghans who have collaborated with Spain in recent years and who are still inside Afghanistan, and to whom he requested that Spanish collaborators who cross the border be attended as soon as possible by the Spanish Embassy in Pakistan in order to reduce the migratory pressure on Pakistan.
According to Albares, Spain and Pakistan want “the same” for Afghanistan, “stability, peace, that the crisis does not spill over to the region and that humanitarian aid reaches the Afghans”. Likewise, the minister expressed his hope that the Afghan collaborators who could not be evacuated before August 27 “can leave the country peacefully, if they so wish, and come to Spain”, and warned that for Spain as well as for the EU and the international community it is fundamental that human rights are respected in Afghanistan “in the near future”.
In addition, Albares expressed his wish that his visit to Islamabad would contribute to relaunching bilateral relations with Pakistan, “an important partner for Spain and the EU” and which has a colony of around 100,000 people in our country. In this sense, he announced that his objective is to resume bilateral consultations before the end of this year, “if possible in Madrid”. The last bilateral consultations were held in 2018. After the press conference, Albares visited the Spanish Embassy, where he met with the staff, and held a meeting with an Afghan family that will soon be moving to Spain.
