EU Contributes 50 Million Euros To WFP’s Programmes in Afghanistan

Muttaqi had addressed Taliban members, while paying a visit to Mullah Omar’s grave in Zabul Province, but the Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, published them on Wednesday.

The Taliban’s foreign minister also said that Mullah Omar had urged that the US and its allies should be defeated and the Taliban members delivered on that promise.

Muttaqi added that although Mullah Omar was hiding in one corner of Afghanistan, his orders had been "obeyed" throughout the country.

Taliban officials had announced earlier this week that the body of Mullah Omar, the former leader of this group, was buried in Sewri district of Zabul province.

The Taliban did not say when his body was buried in the district, but the previous government of Afghanistan had announced that Mullah Omar had died in Pakistan.

DABS didn’t provide further details about when the power outage will start.

DABS, however, stressed that based on officials of Uzbekistan, the adjustments and changes are temporary and will be completed soon.

In August this year, Afghanistan settled its multimillion-dollar outstanding debts owed to Uzbekistan for electric power supplies. It had owed Uzbekistan for the 2,151.3 kilowatt hours of electricity supplied in 2021.

However, Tajikistan is still waiting for its payments. In July Tajikistan received $2 million from Afghanistan toward the debt, which now stands at over $28 million.

Afghanistan imports over 80 percent of its electricity, at an annual cost of some $220 million, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a watchdog created by the U.S. Congress. In Afghanistan, only 22% of the 1,600 megawatts used each year are produced nationally, while the rest is imported from neighbouring countries.

Uzbekistan is its biggest electricity supplier. This year, around half of Afghanistan’s imported power is coming from Uzbekistan, and most of the rest from Tajikistan.

Both have long-duration electricity supply agreements signed before the Taliban returned to power, which are adjusted annually. The Afghans are contracted to pay Uzbekistan $100 million and Tajikistan $69 million for the power supplies.

Any halt to electricity supplies from Central Asia risks leaving over 10 million Afghans in the dark, the United Nations Development Program, or UNDP, has previously warned.

No further details of the export of goods and products have been provided. However, carpets, dried and fresh fruits, vegetables, coal, medicinal plants and semi-precious stones are the main exported goods.

The economic deputy of the Taliban’s Prime Minister’s Office said that if this exporting process continues until the end of this solar year, the number of Afghanistan’s exports will reach two billion dollars. This is despite the fact that from the beginning to the end of the solar year 1400, goods worth 850 million dollars were exported from Afghanistan to other countries.

Earlier, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) previously reported the surge in Afghanistan’s exports to Pakistan on November 4, in a report. According to the SIGAR report, Afghanistan exported 796 million dollars to Pakistan between 2021 and 2022.

Baradar stressed on "strengthening bilateral economic and political relations" with Kyrgyzstan.

On Sunday, Masarykov had met Abdul Salam Hanafi, the Taliban’s Deputy Prime Minister, and conveyed their concerns about activities of groups in parts of Afghanistan which threatens the national security of Kyrgyzstan.

However, Mullah Baradar has stressed that the Taliban "will not allow any group to use Afghan soil against another country".

Meanwhile, after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, countries in the region and Central Asia have expressed concerns about the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan. Some countries in the region have claimed that various terrorist groups have been active, especially in the northern provinces of Afghanistan.

The Taliban, however, has repeatedly denied the claims of the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

After the Taliban’s takeover, there has been a regular pattern of delivery of cash to the Taliban’s Central Bank as humanitarian aid.

Many aid agencies and activists are concerned about how this aid money is being spent

The United Nations offices in Afghanistan have not responded to these concerns about the spending, supervision, and distribution of aid money by the Taliban.

In fact, as per a May 2022 report published by the Europe Asia Foundation (EAF), the aid given by the world is not distributed efficiently by the Taliban, moreover, war-torn Afghanistan is facing a dearth of funds after sanctions were imposed by donor nations after the Taliban took control of the country.

The report informs that international humanitarian aid to the tune of USD 1.88 billion pledged since mid-2021 has not been distributed efficiently and more than half of all Afghans go hungry.