US Will Use Every Tool To Make Sure Taliban Lives Up to Its Commitments, Says Ned Price

Citing Taliban’s commitment to uphold Afghanistan’s women, its girls, its religious minorities and ethnic minorities’ rights, Price said that the Taliban has not lived up to these commitments.

He added that the religious minorities in Afghanistan have faced a complex set of threats not only from the Taliban, which has not shown the tolerance and inclusivity that they had promised, but also from the likes of ISIS-K. “The number of attacks that we have seen attributable to ISIS-K against, for example, Shia mosques, Shia worshipers, individuals who were doing nothing more than exercising their universal right to freedom of religion, to freedom of belief, who have been killed in doing so. That is a testament to the threat that is faced by religious minorities in Afghanistan,” he said.

Maintaining that the US will continue to see to it that groups like al-Qaeda and groups like ISIS-K are not in a position to pose a threat beyond Afghan borders to the United States, he said that it is also incumbent on the Taliban, consistent with the U.S.-Taliban agreement, but also the other commitments they have made to the people of Afghanistan, to do all they can to take on the threat posed by al-Qaeda, to take on the threat posed by ISIS-K, not only beyond Afghanistan’s borders but to the very people of Afghanistan, including to its religious minorities.

However, he added that the US will keep supporting the Afghan people during the dire economic times as the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan. “We have demonstrated that we’re able to fulfill our enduring commitments to the Afghan people using the various diplomatic tools at our disposal and with exceptional help from our partners like Qatar, the UAE, and our European allies and others,” he added.