Avoiding the humanitarian catastrophe and making the country a sanctuary of terrorism again: these are the two objectives around which it will revolve today the extraordinary meeting of G20 leaders on Afghanistan, on which Prime Minister Mario Draghi worked for weeks, in an attempt to create the broadest possible consensus on the issue. The works will start at 1 pm, Italian time, in virtual mode. At the end of the summit, the premier will hold a press conference at the Multifunctional Hall of the Prime Minister.
The meeting via videoconference it is held in the aftermath of the conclusion of the talks in Doha between the United States and the Taliban, the first since the Koranic students entered Kabul on August 15 last. “I believe it is the duty of the richest countries in the world to do something to avoid the humanitarian catastrophe, without that conditionality whereby I will give you a package of wheat if you abjure your faiths. saving lives – said Draghi on 29 September last announcing the meeting – The second discussion is to see what steps the international community wants to take to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming the nest of international terrorism “.
The premier, after a series of telephone contacts with all the main actors involved, from Joe Biden to Vladimir Putin, from Xi Jinping to Narendra Modi, snatched the ‘yes’ from the meeting, which puts the United States around the same table, finished in recent weeks in the dock for the chaos of the withdrawal from Kabul, Russia and China, which on the dossier have positions distant from those of the West, eager, more for reasons related to security the first and economic interests the second, to start relations with the new Taliban government. Although present, Moscow and Beijing will not participate at the level of leaders: neither the Russian president nor the Chinese president will connect, sending in the first case a deputy foreign minister in the second the head of diplomacy. Moreover, the meeting should seal at the highest level what was already agreed at the meeting of the Group’s foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on 23 September last.
The meeting, chaired by Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, according to what was read in the note released at the end, “testified to the broad consensus on the contribution that the group could provide to a sustainable, coherent and effective solution to the crisis”. The idea of an extraordinary G20 summit – to be added to the summit at the end of October in presence in Rome – had already emerged in the days immediately following the entry of the Taliban in Kabul, with images of tens of thousands of desperate Afghans in search of salvation to the West. There was from respond to the humanitarian crisis and the need to adopt a more shared line as possible to deal with the ‘new masters’ of Afghanistan, involving the countries of the region, but also the great powers that can exert influence on its Taliban and for this purpose the G7 was certainly not enough.
Hence the idea of ’using’ the G20, a forum that traditionally deals with economic issues and which has Russia, China, but also Turkey and Saudi Arabia among its members. The meeting should end with a ‘chair summary’, a statement by the Italian presidency of the G20 on which we are continuing to work in the last few hours.