Now Taliban preserve Buddhas, with eye to China investment

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These ancient Buddha statues are the key to unlocking billions in Chinese investment.

A general view of Mes Aynak valley shows an archeological digs on a spot where a 2,000 years old Buddhist settlement is located, some 40 kilometers southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. The valley is the world's second-largest unexploited copper estimated to be worth nearly $1 trillion.

But now they are intent on preserving the relics of the Mes Aynak copper mine. Doing so is key to unlocking billions in Chinese investment, said Hakumullah Mubariz, the Taliban head of security at the site.The Taliban’s spectacular reversal illustrates the powerful allure of Afghanistan’s untapped mining sector.

Dilawar has had two virtual meetings with MCC in the last six months, according to company and ministry officials. He urged them to return to the mine, terms unchanged from the 2008 contract. For Afghanistan, the contract at Mes Aynak could bring in $250-300 million per year to state revenues, a 17% increase, as well as $800 million in fees over the contract’s length, according to government and company officials. That’s a significant sum as the country grapples with widespread poverty.At Mes Aynak, a 2,000-year-old Buddhist city sits uncomfortably alongside a potential economic engine.

Looters then pillaged many antiquities from the site. Still, archaeologists who came in 2004 managed a partial excavation and uncovered remnants of a vast complex.

 

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