Italy's Draghi says need contact with Taliban, not same as recognition

ROME: The Group of 20 rich countries needs to maintain contact with Afghanistan's Taliban government but this does not mean the Kabul administration will be formally recognised, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Tuesday.

Speaking after chairing a special G20 summit on the Afghan crisis, Draghi said the virtual meeting had been a success despite the absence of key leaders such as China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

"This was the first multilateral response to the Afghan crisis ... multilateralism is coming back, with difficulty, but it is coming back," Draghi told reporters after the video conference.

Neighbours Pakistan and Iran not invited as G20 tackles Afghan humanitarian crisis

There was unanimous agreement among the participants about the need to tackle Afghanistan's mounting humanitarian crisis and safeguard the position of women in the impoverished nation, Draghi said.

"It is very hard to see how you can help people in Afghanistan without involving the Taliban," Draghi said.

Draghi hosted a special summit of the Group of 20 major economies to discuss Afghanistan, as worries grow about a looming humanitarian disaster following the Taliban's return to power.

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan on August 15, the country - already struggling with drought and severe poverty after decades of war - has seen its economy all but collapse, raising the spectre of an exodus of refugees.

"The summit's focus points included urgent humanitarian support for the Afghan population, the fight against terrorism, freedom of movement inside the country and open borders," Draghi's office said in a brief statement earlier.

The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres joined Tuesday's summit, highlighting the central role being given to the United Nations in dealing with Afghanistan - in part because many countries don't want direct relations with the Taliban.

Banks in the country are running out of money, civil servants have not been paid and food prices have soared.

"The crisis is affecting at least 18 million people - half the country's population," Guterres told reporters in New York on Monday, adding that a massive UN aid operation was underway in a "race against time" as winter approaches.

Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the G20, worked hard to set up the meeting in the face of highly divergent views within the group on how to deal with Afghanistan after the chaotic US withdrawal from Kabul.

China has publicly demanded that economic sanctions on Afghanistan be lifted and that billions of dollars in Afghan international assets be unfrozen and handed back to Kabul.

The United States and Britain, where many of the assets are being held, are resisting this.

Guterres on Monday called for a major injection of liquidity into the Afghan economy, but said this should not be channelled through the Taliban. Answering his call, the European Union said on Tuesday it would give an additional 700 million euros ($810 million) in emergency aid to Afghanistan and its neighbours.

Two neighbouring states, Pakistan and Iran, were not invited to join Tuesday's G20 call, but Qatar, which has played a key role as an interlocutor between the Taliban and the West, was taking part.

The virtual summit comes just days after senior US and Taliban officials met in Qatar for their first face-to-face meeting since the Taliban retook power.