BEIJING: A top-level Taliban delegation visiting China on Wednesday assured Beijing the group would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for plotting against another country.

The delegation is in China for talks with Beijing officials, as the insurgents continue a sweeping offensive across Afghanistan including in areas along their shared border.

Their frontier is just 76 kilometres long — and at a rugged high altitude without a road crossing — but Beijing fears Afghanistan could be used as a staging ground for Uyghur separatists in Xinjiang.

Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said those concerns were unfounded. “The Islamic Emirate assured China that Afghanistan’s soil would not be used against any country’s security.

“They (China) promised not to interfere in Afghanistan’s affairs, but instead help to solve problems and bring peace.”

For its part, China told the Taliban delegation it expected the insurgent group to play an important role in ending Afghanistan’s war and rebuilding the country, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Nine Taliban representatives met Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the two sides discussed the Afghan peace process and security issues, the Taliban spokesperson said.

Wang said the Taliban were expected to “play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan”, according to a readout of the meeting from the foreign ministry.

He also said that he hoped the Taliban would crack down on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as it was a “direct threat to China’s national security,” according to the readout, referring to a group China says is active in the Xinjiang region in China’s far west.

The meeting in the Chinese city of Tianjin, which Naeem said was at the invitation from Chinese authorities, was widely seen as a gift from Beijing to the insurgent group. The visit, therefore, is likely to further cement the group’s recognition on the international stage at a sensitive time even as violence increases in Afghanistan.

The militants have a political office in Qatar where peace talks are taking place and this month they sent representatives to Iran where they had meetings with an Afghan government delegation.

Naeem added that the delegation, led by Taliban negotiator and deputy leader Mullah Baradar, was also meeting China’s special envoy for Afghanistan.

Security in Afghanistan has been deteriorating fast as the United States withdraws its troops by September. The Taliban have launched a flurry of offensives, taking districts and border crossings around the country while peace talks in Qatar’s capital have not made substantive progress.