Peaceful Afghanistan Requires Inclusive Political Process, Says UN Envoy

Recently, many reports have emerged that the Taliban have arrested and tortured many civilians in the northern provinces, especially in Panjshir, Kapisa, Parwan, Baghlan, and north of Kabul, on the charges of cooperation with the NRF.

On Wednesday, the representative of Tajikistan at the Moscow consultative meeting expressed concerns about the killing of Tajiks in Afghanistan too.

The Tajikistan representative said that the mass killing of Tajiks has been underway in Panjshir and the northern regions of Afghanistan.

Human rights organisations also published several reports saying that the Taliban had tortured civilians in northern provinces of Afghanistan.

The Taliban's foreign ministry did not name any country, but after al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US airstrike in Kabul, the Taliban criticised Pakistan and said that Islamabad had allowed the US to use Pakistani soil to attack Afghanistan.

The Taliban foreign ministry added that the group believes that the security, stability, and economic prosperity of the region is the joint responsibility of all the countries in the region. The Taliban also said that joint measures need to be taken and to better address the regional issues, and the group must be involved in regional initiatives.

The Taliban’s statement has been issued at a time when at the Moscow meeting, Iran’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, said that his country is against the US return to Afghanistan in the name of reconstruction of the country.

Qomi, added that the current crisis in Afghanistan is the result of the two decades of the presence of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan.

Moscow's consultative meeting on Afghanistan was held on Wednesday with the presence of representatives of at least ten countries from the region.

The US Special Representative for Afghanistan said that he has met with Shahrzad Akbar, the former chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

The Taliban have been accused of widespread human rights violations since taking power in Afghanistan.

After their takeover of Afghanistan, the group dissolved Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and several other government bodies.

China, which enjoys close relations with the Taliban, believes that the United States’ strategy in Afghanistan has failed.

The Chinese Special envoy also added, at the Moscow meeting, that the United States is the source of problems in Afghanistan.

At the Moscow meeting, representatives of Uzbekistan and Russia also demanded the release of Afghanistan’s frozen funds.

He also announced that Iran will soon hold an international meeting regarding Afghanistan. According to Qomi, the upcoming meeting will be at the foreign-ministerial level.

Addressing the participants of the Moscow meet, Qomi warned that time is running out, and if the world can’t manage the situation in Afghanistan, it will get worse.

Representatives of Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, India, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are present in this meeting.

The Taliban has not been invited to this meeting and Qomi did not comment on the presence of the Taliban in the upcoming meeting in Tehran too.