Doha [Qatar], October 9 (ANI): The delegations of the Taliban and the United States on Saturday held their first meeting in Qatar‘s capital Doha, in a bid to turn the “new page on their relationship”.
This is the first in-person meeting between the two sides since the US drawdown from Afghanistan in mid-August. “The delegations of the Afghan government and the United States discussed turning the page on their relationship in Qatar as well as humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and the implementation of the Doha peace agreement,” Sputnik quoted Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi as saying. “The Afghan delegation demanded that Americans should not violate the Afghan airspace or interfere in the country’s home affairs,” Muttaqi said.
The Taliban also urged the US to lift curbs on the Afghan central bank’s reserves. The US offered COVID-19 vaccines to Afghanistan, Sputnik reported. Meanwhile, US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price earlier said that the meeting between the delegation is “not about granting recognition or conferring legitimacy.”
“This meeting is a continuation of the pragmatic engagements with the Taliban on issues of US vital national interest,” Price said. Since the Taliban‘s take over of Afghanistan, there are a handful of nations like China and Pakistan who have shown interest in establishing ties with the outfit. Other members of the international community are adopting a wait and watch policy.
US Deputy State Secretary’s visit focuses on Kabul, overshadows desire for broad-based ties with Pakistan
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman‘s recent visit to Pakistan overshadowed the desire for broad-based ties with Islamabad as it was focused on Afghanistan‘s current situation, reported local media.
Wendy Sherman reached Islamabad on Thursday for the talks that focused on the current situation in Afghanistan and on US efforts to evolve a coordinated approach towards Afghanistan, reported Dawn. During her two day visit to Islamabad, Sherman met various top members of the Pakistan government including Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf and Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.
US State Department on Friday issued a statement on Shermans’s engagements. It indicated the centrality of the Afghan issue in US–Pakistan talks. Speaking at a news briefing in Islamabad, Sherman said that while she also discussed bilateral relations with Pakistani officials, “this particular trip was to really consult deeply on how we see the changing circumstances, given the change that has taken place in Afghanistan,” according to Dawn.
It confirms what Sherman said at an event in Mumbai on Thursday, where she declared that Washington no longer sees itself building a “broad-based relationship” with Pakistan and that she was going to Islamabad with a “specific and narrow purpose” of talks on Afghanistan.
Despite differences on Afghanistan and other issues, the Biden administration will continue its engagement with Pakistan, diplomatic sources in Washington say. However, the sources say that in all these talks, the US will focus on four major points: Recognition of the Taliban government in Kabul, international sanctions on Afghanistan, access to the land-locked country and counter-terrorism cooperation, reported Dawn.
Taliban ask US to unfreeze Afghan financial assets
Doha [Qatar], October 10 (ANI): The Taliban have urged the United States to unfreeze Afghanistan‘s central bank reserves, during the first in-person meeting in Qatar after the takeover of Kabul in August.
The two sides on Saturday held their first meeting in Doha to turn a “new page on their relationship”. This is the first in-person meeting between the two sides since the US drawdown from Afghanistan in mid-August. Taliban Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said that they want to engage with the international community and will not be in favour of one country and against the other one.
“The need to establish good positive relations with each other on an equal basis is being emphasized in the discussions. We stressed the need for unfreezing of Afghan financial assets in the wake of difficult circumstances facing Afghanistan,” the foreign minister said, as quoted by the Voice of America (VOA). “We clearly told [the Americans] that nobody benefits from an unstable Afghanistan, so no one should try to weaken the current government of Afghanistan or fuel problems for our Afghan people who already are struggling economically,” Muttaqi said.
Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had put on hold funds to Afghanistan amid the rising uncertainty in the country. The developments came after IMF recently announced a USD 650 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation for member countries, but Afghanistan at the moment will not be allowed to access these funds, Tolo News reported.
Last month, IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice said at a press conference that Afghanistan will not have access to this grant because of the uncertainty over Afghanistan‘s government. (ANI)
