China on Monday said that it is willing to develop "friendly relations" with the Taliban after Afghanistan's capital city Kabul fell into the hands of the terror outfit.
"China respects the right of the Afghan people to independently determine their own destiny and is willing to continue to develop… friendly and cooperative relations with Afghanistan," foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters, said ARY News.
Earliear today, the Taliban declared the war in Afghanistan was over after they took control of the presidential palace on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
Visuals showed hundreds of Afghans desperate to leave the overcrowded Kabul airport as US-led forces departed along with Western nations scrambling to evacuate their citizens.
The world has been left stunned at images of the Taliban's blitzkrieg across Afghanistan, as that country's military evaporated with remarkable swiftness.
Earlier on July 28, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met formally in Tianjin with a nine-member Taliban delegation, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the hardline Muslim group's co-founder and deputy leader.
Wang had publicly acknowledged the Taliban as "a crucial military and political force in Afghanistan that is expected to play an important role in the peace, reconciliation and reconstruction process of the country".