Massoud Zahedian, the deputy head of Iran's anti-narcotics directorate, announced that in 2022, poppy plant has been cultivated on 233,000 hectares in Afghanistan. According to Zahedian, 76 percent of the cultivation is on land located near Iran's borders.
In an interview with Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA), Zahedian stressed that in the last two decades, drug production in Afghanistan has reached more than 50%.
The Iranian official accused the US and NATO member states of supporting drug cultivation in Afghanistan.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime also announced in November 2022 that opium cultivation had increased around 30 percent since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
The second meeting of leaders against the Taliban which was held in Vienna ended with an emphasis on a peaceful political solution. In their declaration on Wednesday, the participants urged the international community to recognise all forms of resistance of the Afghan people.
The participants of the Vienna meeting also asked the organisers of the upcoming Doha meeting to refrain from any discussion that would lead to the continuation of the Taliban reign in Afghanistan.
The Doha meeting is scheduled to be held on May 1 and 2 and will be hosted by the United Nations Secretary-General.
Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front (NRF); Fawzia Kofi, a former member of the Afghan parliament; Rangin Dadfar Sapanta, the former foreign minister of Afghanistan, and many other Taliban opponents attended the second meeting held in Vienna.
The participants of the meeting also stressed that the UN deputy secretary general Amina Mohammed should explain her recent irresponsible statements on Afghanistan.
The first meeting of anti-Taliban leaders was held in 2022 in Vienna.
In their declaration, the participants of the Vienna meeting emphasised that the Taliban have not responded to the legitimate and rightful demands of the Afghan people, which had been listed in the declaration of the first round of the Vienna meeting and have increased their brutality.
The participants of the second Vienna meeting praised the legitimate resistance of the political groups and women and girls of Afghanistan and emphasised on coordination of all anti-Taliban groups.
According to the declaration, a working group has been formed to foster better coordination for the unity of the opposition.
The participants also mentioned the Taliban's restrictions on women and their systematic exclusion from social life and said that they consider the international community's reaction, especially the silence of the United Nations with regards to the violation of Afghan women’s rights, to be irresponsible.
Emphasising that many regional and international terrorist groups have moved to Afghanistan and their operational capabilities have increased, the participants of the Vienna meeting have warned that the risk of spreading terrorism in the region has become a serious threat.
The declaration also welcomed the consensus of the region and the world regarding the non-recognition of the Taliban until the establishment of a government based on the free will of the Afghan people and urged the International Criminal Court to identify and prosecute the Taliban leaders who have committed "crimes against humanity, war crimes and systematic violations of human rights”.
Sami Sadat, former commander of Afghan special forces, said that US and Taliban officials have lied about killing the mastermind of the ISIS attack on Kabul airport. Sadat said that the ISIS mastermind is alive and leads intelligence arm of the Islamic State – Khorasan (IS-K).
The former Afghan army general stressed that the ISIS mastermind is Abdullah Omar Bajawari and added that “Zalmay Khalilzad and the Taliban are lying as usual”.
Sadat emphasised that closing the case of killing 173 Afghan citizens and 13 American soldiers is "disgraceful and disturbing" when the killer is still alive.
Earlier, Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US envoy for Afghanistan’s peace affairs, had said that the Taliban has carried out deadly attacks against ISIS and has killed many of the group’s leaders in Afghanistan.
US military officials on Tuesday informed the father of a slain American soldier that the Taliban killed a high-ranking ISIS figure who played a key role in a suicide attack on the US forces at Kabul Airport in August 2021.
The father of the American soldier said that the authorities did not provide information about the identity of the ISIS member or how he has been killed.
An American official quoted the Taliban as saying that the group was not aware of the fact the dead ISIS member was involved in the Kabul airport suicide attack.
The attack on the Kabul airport took place during the last days of the withdrawal of American soldiers from Afghanistan.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow will not recognise the Taliban until the group fulfils its commitments. Lavrov added that the Taliban must form an inclusive government comprising all ethnic and political groups and respect human rights.
The Russian foreign minister, however, described the Taliban as the "reality" of Afghanistan and emphasised that engagement with the group is needed.
In response to a question by Afghanistan International, Lavrov said, "We will not recognise the Taliban until it fulfils its commitments. As the countries of the world have said, these commitments include the formation of an inclusive government.”
He added, "Inclusive government not only means the presence of all ethnic groups, but also political forces. Taliban says that Uzbeks and Hazaras are also present in their government. That is true, but they are members of the Taliban group. Political forces should also have a strong presence in their government."
The Taliban has rejected the formation of a government with the presence of other political groups and has called human rights an "internal issue" of Afghanistan.
Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said that the United Nations is urging donor countries to honour their commitments to Afghanistan. Griffiths said that donor countries had committed 4.6 billion dollars to Afghanistan.
During a press conference in Tehran, however, he stressed that these countries have contributed less than the promised amount.
Iranian media have reported that Griffiths met Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on Tuesday during his visit to Tehran.
The two officials discussed the humanitarian situation in the region, from helping Afghanistan to earthquake-stricken countries such as Turkey and Syria.
Griffiths discussed the extraordinary conditions prevailing in Afghanistan and the need for 16 million people to receive humanitarian aid in the country.
He also stressed that the Taliban must fulfill their obligations to guarantee the right to education, work, and activism of Afghan women and girls.
Mohammad Nabi Omari, Taliban’s Deputy Minister of Interior, has claimed that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Afghanistan has been established by “foreign invaders”. He stressed that ISIS has been highlighted in the media more than its ground presence in Afghanistan.
Omari has not clarified which countries he meant when he mentioned “foreign invaders”, however, the Taliban usually refers to the United States and other countries which had been present in Afghanistan as part of the coalition of NATO member states from 2001 to 2021 as “occupiers”, and “invaders”.
Earlier, the Washington Post, citing leaked US documents, said that Afghanistan has changed into a hub of terrorism and ISIS coordination.
In an audio message released by the group's Ministry of Interior on the occasion of Eid, Omari emphasised that the Taliban has been established to stabilise Afghanistan.
Omari emphasised that those who publish “fake reports about the presence of forces that destabilise Afghanistan,” can’t tolerate the stability and current situation of Afghanistan.
He said that the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan is "media propaganda", while in the past 20 months of the Taliban reign in Afghanistan, ISIS has taken responsibility for bloody attacks in Kabul and various provinces of the country.
On the other hand, Central Asian countries have repeatedly expressed their concerns about the presence of ISIS fighters in Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban.
