China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal to discuss setting up fast track channel: Spokesperson

Beijing: China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal have agreed to resume cross border flow of people and discuss setting up of fast track and green channel to facilitate each other’s nationals, a Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday.

“We will resume cross-border flow of people in orderly manner when certain conditions are met and discuss and we will discuss setting up of fast track and green channel,” he said during his regular briefing held here while responding to a question regarding the video conference on Covid-19 between foreign ministers of China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal.

Giving details, he said, yesterday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosted this foreign ministers meeting between the four countries on Covid-19. This meeting was initiated by China and supported by Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nepal. The spokesperson said the four parties exchanged views and reached consensus on joint fight against Covid-19 and resuming economic and social development. “We believe as partners and neighbours, the four countries have reached fruitful outcomes including timely sharing of information and joint fight against pandemic,” he added.

Wang Wenbin emphasized that in face of tackling pandemic, all parties should strengthen joint prevention and control, uphold our people health, promote resumption of work and production, facilitate trans-border trade, ensure people’s livelihood until the four countries prevail over the virus. “We believe solidarity and the cooperation is the most powerful weapon,” he said and added, “We should adhere to the multilateralism and community with the shared future for mankind, support World Health Organization’s leading role and upholding regional and global public health security.”

He said, four parties should strengthen information, communication, policy coordination and cooperation in action. “We stand ready to work with other parties in terms of testing diagnose, treatment and research of vaccine and medicine and we will assist the three countries in improving their capacity building of public health,” he added. Wang Wenbin reiterated that after the vaccine is deployed, it will become a global public good and improve the accessibility of the these countries. “The four countries appreciate this and said they are ready to strengthen cooperation with china,” he added.

He said, the four countries will also reach standard operation procedure for border control, information sharing, academic prevention and emergency response. “We agreed to strengthen Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation to boost economic and social recovery besides upholding stability, supply and industrial chain.”