The AISS Head of Peace Studies Department, Mr. Abdul Ahad Mohammadi participated in a conference titled, “China and its Neighboring Countries: Towards Common Prosperity and Development”. The conference was conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) on May 27-28, 2014 in Beijing, the Capital of China.

The conference aimed to provide an academic environment for experts from China and its neighboring countries to share and exchange their ideas in order to propose operative ways for overcoming the existing regional challenges and also think of a new mechanism for promotion of multidimensional regional cooperation. In addition to the set of broad policy related suggestions, the participants agreed to create an academic network among the well-known regional think tanks as an initial step for fulfillment of such aims.

With respect to the Afghanistan, Mr. Mohammadi, spoke about recent years socio-political events in Afghanistan. He stated that the events are decent indicators of the Afghan people’s eagerness for positive changes. He further stated that stable Afghanistan is in interest of all the regional countries. Mr. Mohammadi continued his arguments that the current challenges in Afghanistan cannot be limited to the borders of Afghanistan and have the potential to harm the neighboring countries as well. Hence, there is need for regional cooperation in order to overcome the challenges in Afghanistan. In his concluding remarks, Mr. Mohammadi suggested that increase in the level of Chinese economic involvement and also cultural and academic exchanges with Afghanistan would benefit both countries.