Iran’s special envoy for Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi Qomi said that the Taliban have one month to give Iran their water rights from the Helmand River. Qomi said that if proven that the Kajaki Dam has enough water, then the Taliban must be held accountable.
According to Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) Qomi added, "Taliban officials know that if they want to establish a stable government in Afghanistan, they must have constructive engagement with their neighbours."
Verbal tensions have emerged on Iran’s water rights from Helmand River after Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi issued a warning to the Taliban on Thursday during a visit to Sistan and Baluchistan province of the country.
During his visit, Raisi warned the Taliban, "Take my words seriously so that you don't complain later."
The president of Iran threatened the Taliban in an unprecedented tone and said, "I want to tell the rulers of Afghanistan not to take my words as normal, to take them very seriously; I warn the authorities and rulers of Afghanistan to give the rights of the people and the region of Sistan and Baluchistan immediately."
Following these statements, the Taliban issued a rather harsh statement and asked the Iranian authorities to refrain from "provocative statements".
However, now the verbal tensions have taken on a much more serious dimension and an Iranian member of Parliament has pointed to the Taliban as saying that Iranian officials are not Ashraf Ghani, the former Afghan president who fled the country, and Iranian forces are not "fugitive American soldiers".
Hashmat Ghani, brother of former president Ashraf Ghani, said that people close to Ibrahim Haqqani, a leading member of the Haqqani network, accused him of drinking alcohol. Ghani said that through a forced confession from journalist Ali Latifi, Haqqani wants to harass him.
According to Hashmat Ghani, Ibrahim Haqqani’s people forced Ali Latifi to record a video confession saying that he drank wine with him on Thursday night.
The Taliban has released the video of the journalist's confession. In this video, in which it is not yet clear under what conditions it has been recorded, the Afghan-American journalist said that he drank wine with Hashmat Ghani at his house.
The reporter added that the Taliban arrested him after he left Hashmat Ghani's house in Kabul.
In a call to Afghanistan International, Hashmat Ghani said that the Taliban arrested this journalist after meeting him in the Darul Aman area near Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's house and forced him to confess.
Ghani added that the Taliban is doing this to harass him. He emphasised that he is willing to take a blood test to prove his innocence.
Hashmat Ghani emphasised that Ibrahim Haqqani took possession of Ashraf Ghani's house and did not leave the house despite the order of the Taliban leader and cabinet.
According to Heshmat Ghani, for 18 months, Ibrahim Haqqani has been in Ashraf Ghani's house in Kabul and not only does he not leave this house, but also causes problems in Logar and Nangarhar for the Ghani family’s farmers and lands.
In a video message last year, Hashmat Ghani had accused Ibrahim Haqqani of usurping Ashraf Ghani's house. The Taliban officials have not officially commented on this matter so far.
Iran Human Rights (IRH) announced that Islamic Republic has executed Najaf Suleiman Reshad, an Afghan prisoner accused of "deliberate murder", in Khorram Abad. Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights too said that Iran has executed at least seven Afghans in the past five months.
Iranian officials have not yet given details about the execution of Afghan citizens in the country.
IRH said in a report that Suleiman Reshad, along with three other prisoners, had been sentenced to "retribution" and their sentences were executed on Thursday.
The human rights group added that the Afghan citizen spent four years in the prison of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
However, Hengaw rights group has not given any details about the identity of the seven Afghan citizens who have been executed in Iran in the last five months.
The Islamic Republic has recently started a wave of execution of prisoners across Iran.
The country's judiciary announced on Friday that Majid Kazemi, Saeed Yaghoubi and Saleh Mirhashemi, three protesters imprisoned in what Persian media have dubbed the ‘Esfahan (Isfahan) House’ case, have been executed.
Earlier, Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights also reported that the Islamic Republic executed at least 14 prisoners in various Iranian prisons on Thursday.
After a week of being appointed as the Charge d'Affaires of the Afghan embassy in New Delhi, the Taliban official there has yet to receive the key for the embassy. The ambassador from the republic era has been leading the embassy and New Delhi is still silent on the issue.
Although India has not allowed the Afghan embassy to be transferred from the diplomats of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Taliban, it is unclear how India’s policies with regards to the Afghan embassy and the Taliban will unfold.
The tension between the Afghan diplomats in New Delhi and the Taliban has been leaked to the media and the power struggle over the possession of this important embassy has not been resolved yet.
The controversy began when Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi appointed Qadir Shah, Afghanistan's trade counsellor to India, as the acting head of Afghanistan's embassy in India after the current ambassador, Farid Mamundzay, had been accused of mismanagement and corruption. It seems that these reports, which have not been confirmed, are laying the groundwork for the removal of the ambassador who had been appointed by former Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, and replace him with a representative of the Taliban.
In two official letters, Amir Khan Muttaqi, the foreign minister of the Taliban, first asked for the return of Farid Mamundzay to Kabul and then asked for the management of the Afghan embassy to be handed over to Qadir Shah, who is currently in New Delhi as a diplomat of the embassy. It seems that the Taliban has chosen a representative from among the current Afghan diplomates to take over the Afghan embassy in New Delhi.
There is no doubt that this move was not hidden from the eyes of India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Indian Intelligence Services.
However, the attempt to remove Mamundzay and make him return to Kabul, who also has British nationality, has so far failed. On the contrary, he returned to his job at the embassy and denied the allegations of administrative and financial corruption and exposed the Taliban's attempts to take over the Afghan embassy in India in order to force New Delhi not to give in to the Taliban's demands with the help of public opinion.
Therefore, the fate of the Afghan embassy in India is still in question and the story continues. India considers the Taliban as a proxy group of Pakistan and in close contact with other extremist Islamic groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which have repeatedly waged terrorist attacks in major and important cities in India. The Taliban also has a record of the deadly attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in 2008. During the first Taliban era, Islamist hijackers close to Pakistan hijacked an Indian passenger plane and the only place they were allowed to land was in Kandahar.
The bloody and controversial history of India and Islamic extremism has not been forgotten. India's anti-terrorism policy has been based on condemning the activities of these groups, including the Taliban. Even, this policy has been projected to the Indian public through various means including Bollywood movies. That’s why any turn in India's foreign policy towards the Taliban can cause domestic reactions.
Therefore, any move to raise the Taliban flag on Indian soil is a difficult choice for New Delhi. But the fact is that India, like many other pragmatic countries, must come to terms with the reality of Afghanistan today and not leave this country completely for a rival neighbour. Therefore, the Indian government has engaged with the Taliban in Afghanistan. One of India's measures is to reopen a part of its embassy in Kabul, which it called a "technical mission".
Officials of the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have also visited Kabul several times and met with the Taliban. The Indian government cooperates with the Taliban in providing medical support, humanitarian aid, and training for the Taliban members. However, accepting the Taliban's request to take charge of the Afghan embassy in New Delhi will be another step in strengthening relations between the two sides.
The Taliban has not received any international recognition so far, but by resorting to various methods, it has been able to install representatives in at least 14 countries such as Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran, Qatar, and Turkmenistan, or choose a representative from among diplomats and take over the management of the Afghan embassies. Afghanistan has more than 40 embassies and 20 consulates worldwide, and many of these diplomatic institutions are in limbo.
Taking over the Afghan embassy in New Delhi seems to be one of the most important goals of the Taliban toward its international presence. It seems efforts to retain Qadir Shah, the trade consul of the Afghan embassy in New Delhi, and backdoor negotiations with Indian officials to receive the key of the Afghan embassy is a goal that the Taliban will not give up anytime soon.
Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian expressed doubts about the Taliban's reasons for not complying with Iran's demands on the water rights issues. Amir Abollahian said that technical visits must determine the water level in Afghanistan’s dams.
The Taliban declared that due to drought, water from the Helmand River has not reached Iran.
Earlier, the statement of the Taliban’s prime minister’s office said that although the Taliban is committed to the 1973 water treaty between Iran and Afghanistan, due to drought, no water is available in the Kamal Khan and Kajaki dams to reach Iran.
In the statement, the Taliban prime minister’s office considered "Iran's repeated requests for water and inappropriate statements in the media as harmful".
In response to the Taliban’s statement, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran did not accept the official reasons presented by the Taliban and emphasised on the visit of a technical team from Tehran to measure the water level in Afghanistan dams. He stressed that political statements can’t determine the water rights of Iran.
On Twitter, Amir Abollahian said that in recent months, he has repeatedly asked the Taliban foreign minister to fulfil their obligations according to the Helmand water treaty and provide the ground for the visit of a technical delegation to measure the amount of water. However, he stressed that the Taliban side didn’t abide by the request.
Earlier, Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban's foreign minister, in response to the request of the Iranian foreign minister and other Iranian officials, said that they should wait for rain so that there is enough water for consumption by both countries.
Meanwhile, Hossein Delirian, the spokesperson of the Iranian space agency, said that satellite images show that the Taliban has prevented water from reaching Iran inside Afghanistan by diverting the water by construction of numerous dams.
It seems that despite Tehran's insistence, the Taliban has refused to accept the Iranian technical delegation to measure the amount of water in Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s prime minister’s office strongly criticised the Iranian official’s statements on water rights from the Helmand River. The office of the Taliban’s prime minister called Iranian president’s statement as “inappropriate words” and based on “incomplete” information.
The Taliban’s statement called Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other Iranian official’s remarks harmful to the relationship between Iran and the Taliban.
On Thursday, Raisi warned the Taliban officials to allocate the share of water of Sistan and Baluchistan from the Helmand River. He said that the Taliban should take his warning seriously and "not complain later that we weren't told”.
However, the statement of the Taliban’s prime minister’s office, said that although the Taliban is committed to the 1973 water treaty between Iran and Afghanistan, due to drought, no water is available in Kamal Khan and Kajaki dams to reach Iran.
The statement stressed that the Taliban "will do their best to ensure that the promised water reaches the people of Iran, but only on the condition that our water reserves are sufficient" to flow to Iran.
However, Raisi showed in his statement that the Islamic Republic does not trust the Taliban about the lack of sufficient water in the dams of Afghanistan.
He bluntly said, "Afghanistan's rulers should allow our experts to come and check the authenticity of the matter. If our experts confirm the lack of water, we have nothing to say, otherwise, we will not allow the rights of our people to be violated in any way."
In the statement, the Taliban prime minister’s office considered "Iran's repeated requests for water and inappropriate statements in the media as harmful".
Addressing the Iranian authorities, he said, "First, they should complete their information about Helmand water and then, express their demand with appropriate words."
The Taliban prime minister’s office added that such statements "must not be repeated”.