Didn’t Allow Taliban’s Charge d’Affairs To Enter Afghan Embassy Premises, Says Mamundzay

Zia said that these students and several ordinary citizens had travelled to Iran for work, but had been imprisoned in Zahedan city.

Without providing more details, he said that these people have been released from prison after the Taliban foreign ministry, and Afghan embassy in Tehran, and the Afghan consulate in Zaheden intervened. It is not clear on what charges these Sunni religious students had been detained.

Recently, the Taliban’s ministry of refugees had announced that thousands of Afghans have returned from Iran to Afghanistan.

Iran is one of the main destinations of Afghan refugees for work or education. Thousands of Afghan Shia and Sunni students study in Iranian seminaries, including in Qom and Zahedan cities.

On Twitter, he said that in the new world order, the major powers “are probably highly interested in the results” of Türkiye’s presidential elections.

Turkiye has relatively good relations with the Taliban and has accepted the group’s representatives at the Afghan consulate in Istanbul.

Over the past months, the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister and other senior group officials have continuously met with the Turkish ambassador in Kabul.

The Taliban have repeatedly announced that they are against holding elections in Afghanistan. However, Taliban members on Twitter have been closely following the Turkish presidential elections.

Haalvsh reported that Iranian border guards started shooting at smugglers and killed one person. On the other hand, the Taliban opened fire and killed an Iranian border guard.

However, the Islamic Republic’s news agencies have presented another narrative of the incident.

According to Fars and IRNA news agencies, Iranian border guards and drug smugglers clashed in the border region of Nimroz.

Both media have reported that the convoy of drug smugglers, who were crossing the territory of Afghanistan to Iran, shot at the forces of the Islamic Republic, but no one was killed.

However, Fars news agency has confirmed that Iran's border guards held a meeting with the Taliban on Sunday and expressed their dissatisfaction to the group.

The Taliban have not yet commented on the matter. However, the group had announced on Saturday that they met with Iran's border guards and discussed the resolution of border disputes.

Recently, a video clip was published on social media that shows the verbal clash between the Taliban and Iranian forces on the border. In the video clip, the Taliban fighter said to the Iranian soldier that if they want conflict, the Taliban will fight it.

In a statement on Friday, the Coalition added that the UN has allowed its agencies in Afghanistan to abide by the Taliban’s orders in the name of aid distribution and humanitarian assistance.

The statement of the Coalition stressed that the United Nations’ compliance and acceptance of the Taliban’s restrictions imposed on women has given the Taliban the courage to continue violating women’s rights.

However, the Coalition of Afghan Women Protest Movements urged the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations to stand in defence of Afghan women’s rights.

The Coalition said that the United Nations and other aid agencies in Afghanistan must suspend their activities until Afghan women are allowed to work. In the statement, it is emphasised that these agencies should use any means and pressurise Taliban and hold them accountable in cases of human rights violations.

The coalition of Afghan Women Protest Movements consists of the Justice and Freedom Movement, the Spontaneous Movement of Protesting Women, the Unity and Solidarity Team, the Main Movement of Powerful Women, the Takhar Women's Movement, and the Afghan Women's Revolutionary Movement.

After the return of the Taliban to Afghanistan in August 2021, these movements repeatedly appeared on the streets of Kabul and some provinces and protested against the group’s policies.

Mahami added that Iran must use all pressure tools on the Taliban to achieve its goals.

According to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), in a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Energy of Iran, Mahami said that there have been many delays, mismanagement, and indecision while pursuing the water rights of Iran from Helmand River.

He said, "At the beginning of my tenure as [Ali] Khamenei's representative in Sistan and Baluchistan, I had warned about the water rights issue, but the officials at the time had peace of mind that the supply of water from Afghanistan will continue according to the water treaty, which didn’t happen.”

The Iranian government has announced that the water rights issue from the Helmand River is a priority of Iran in 2023.

However, Mahami said, "We have been facing a lack of rainfall for many years, but the authorities are just now following up on the water rights issue.”

Earlier, Amir Khan Muttaqi, the foreign minister of the Taliban, conveyed a clear message to Iran that whenever the rainfall increases, Iran will receive more share of its water rights from the Helmand River.