News - Middle East: A senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official says Tehran will soon host a meeting of top diplomats from Afghanistan’s neighboring states, weeks after the Taliban took over the South Asian country and formed a new interim government in Kabul.

“There are considerable diplomatic activities to understand the developments in Afghanistan and have an influence on its future. 

Different countries pursue their various diplomatic mechanisms,” Rasoul Mousavi, director general of the South Asian affairs department at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said in a post on his Twitter account on Monday.

“Afghanistan’s future is in regional cooperation with its neighbors.

 A meeting of the foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s neighbors will be held in Tehran soon.”

On September 8, Pakistan hosted a virtual conference that brought together the foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s six neighboring states, including China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, to discuss Afghan strategy.

An opening statement at the summit stressed that the neighbors had agreed on closer cooperation to avert a looming humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan.

The neighbors, it added, would require a coordinated approach to cope with challenges stemming from the government change in Kabul after US-led troops left.

The statement further said the challenges included border security and preventing Afghan soil from being used as a base for terrorism and a possible influx of refugees.