China Ready To Invest In Coal-Fired Power Project in Afghanistan, Says Taliban

According to Iranian media reports, Oman's foreign minister has stressed that his country is cooperating with Tehran in the fight against drug trafficking and other crimes.

Iran is among the countries which has good ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Before their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban leaders had traveled to Tehran and held talks with Iranian officials.

After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the Iranian embassy remained open in Kabul and the country maintained close ties with the Taliban.

Earlier, many countries in the region expressed concern about the increase in the activities of terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

While calling the Taliban’s order reckless and dangerous, the statement urged the group to urgently reverse its decision of barring female employees of national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the workplace.

The statement had been issued by the Foreign Ministers of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States and the High Representative of the European Union.

“Women are absolutely central to humanitarian and basic needs operations. Unless they participate in aid delivery in Afghanistan, NGOs will be unable to reach the country’s most vulnerable people to provide food, medicine, winterization, and other materials and services they need to live. This would also affect the humanitarian assistance provided by international organisations, as they utilise NGOs to deliver such materials and services,” the statement added.

The statement also noted that the Taliban seems disinterested in seeking normal relations with the international community as they continue to demonstrate their contempt for the rights, freedoms, and welfare of the Afghan people, particularly women and girls.

They urged the Taliban to respect the political, economic, social, and cultural rights of women and girls in Afghanistan and said that they stand in solidarity with the Afghan people’s calls for girls and women to return to work, school, and university, and for women to continue to play essential roles in humanitarian and basic needs assistance delivery.

The joint statement also said that the signatories are in discussion with the United Nations to avoid any disruption and allow the continuation of all humanitarian operations of international and national NGOs.

These people had been flogged on various charges.

The Taliban publicly flogged another six people in Mehtarlam city of Laghman province on Tuesday.

Earlier, the group had flogged 27 people, including nine women, in Parwan province too.

The Taliban’s flogging of Afghan citizens in public has been met with international condemnation. However, the group has called the international reactions in opposition to Islamic laws.

In the letter, Basir spoke about the achievements of the past twenty years in the education sector and stressed that these achievements have been in danger after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

He urged Germany to stand by the women of Afghanistan and support their rights and freedoms.

Basir added that the Taliban's approach to women's education is not only a violation of basic human rights, but also is clearly against Islamic values.

He emphasised that what is happening in Afghanistan is gender apartheid and even a crime against humanity.

The former minister of higher education of Afghanistan asked the German government to increase its support and assistance for female students as well as Afghan scholars by providing and facilitating scholarships.

The Grand Mufti of Pakistan said that the Taliban can erase the propaganda of their opponents which states that the group is against girls' education, by providing women an opportunity to educate themselves.

He said that the Taliban has suspended girls’ education on the pretext that they can’t allow co-education, so he urged them to teach male and female students during different shifts and classrooms.

Earlier Usmani, who is also the vice-president of Darul Uloom Karachi in Pakistan, had asked the Taliban leader to reopen girls' secondary and high schools.