Iranian and Taliban Officials Meet To Discuss Water Rights Issue, Reports Iranian Media

The Taliban intelligence agency arrested Wesa, an activist for girls’ education and director of PenPath organisation, in late March in Kabul.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has confirmed that the group’s intelligence agency had arrested Wesa for “encouraging people to engage in anti-government activities”.

Rights groups have repeatedly said that those detained by the Taliban don’t have access to due procedures, justice, and lawyers.

Wesa has a strong record of volunteer work in relation to promotion and advocacy for the education of girls and awareness building about education for Afghans in remote areas of Afghanistan.

He has set up workshops and mobile libraries for children in several provinces. With the Taliban banning the education of girls, Wesa concentrated his educational activities on education for girls and women across Afghanistan.

Several international institutions and human rights activists have called for the release of Wesa, but the Taliban have not answered these calls and have kept him in detention.

The UN Women Afghanistan added that in the past two years, the Taliban’s “edicts, decrees and behaviours have been aimed to systematically erase Afghan women and girls from public life”.

The UN Women added that seventy percent of the staff of the organisation are women and fifty-five percent of the UN Women’s national staff are women. According to the organisation, currently, all its staff members work remotely.

UN Women stressed that it is looking for ways to continue to work for women in Afghanistan, but it seems that only remote work is what the UN agencies have been able to manage for now to keep their female national staff at work.

The UN Women in Afghanistan said that the fight for women’s rights in Afghanistan is not only about the rights of Afghan women and girls, but that “it is a fight for the rights of every single woman around the world who has ever been oppressed or silenced simply for being a woman”.

The newspaper emphasised on regional and global diplomacy to resolve tensions over the Helmand water rights issue.

Referring to what the newspaper called as "crime" by Mahmoud Hotaki in Isfahan 1720, this newspaper wrote that the Taliban are the heirs of this former king who conquered Iran.

The newspaper Jamhouri-e-Islami’s editor-in-chief is Masih Mohajeri and has a leaning towards the reformist movement in Iran.

The daily newspaper has listed the Taliban’s violations over the past 18 months and said that the group’s refusal to give water rights of Iran from the Helmand River will cause the death of hundreds of thousands of people in Sistan and Baluchistan and will cause them to leave their ancestral lands.

Referring to Iran's history of using diplomatic tools to put pressure on the Taliban, the Islamic Republic has emphasised that resorting to military means against the Taliban is "in no way permissible" to solve the water rights crisis.

The editorial of the newspaper added that the Islamic Republic cooperated with the United States to remove the Taliban from power, but now Iran has become friends with the same "terrorist group".

The newspaper also wrote that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite being aware of the implementation of America's sinister plans by the Taliban, still interacts with the group and tolerates them.

Handing over the Afghan embassy in Tehran to the Taliban, inviting the Taliban to the official Eid ceremony, inviting the group to a book exhibition, and holding a meeting between the Iranian vice-president for women's affairs with the Taliban that the daily calls as the "most anti-women group in history" are some of the instances that this newspaper considered to be part of Iran's engagement with the Taliban.

The newspaper added that considering the Taliban’s past in the 1990s, and the group’s killing of Iranian diplomats and the Hazara people, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran should fundamentally revise its policy toward the Taliban.

The daily has urged Iran to correct its mistakes of engagement with the Taliban by supporting the people of Afghanistan and discontinuing its support for the Taliban.

However, Saleh did not elaborate if the special unit behind the crash is associated with the National Resistance Front or any other anti-Taliban factions.

Saleh said on Twitter that the Afghan officers had taken an oath by placing their hands on the Quran that they would not betray the country and would remain faithful in protecting the laws and the government’s rule.

The former vice-president asked the air force officers who are in the service of the Taliban to stop their "betrayal" towards Afghanistan.

The Taliban’s Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that an MD-530 helicopter, which was flying from Mazar-e-Sharif Airport to Samangan province, collided with a power line and crashed in the Khulm district of Balkh province.

According to the Taliban Ministry of Defence, the pilot of the helicopter was killed in this incident.

The Taliban fighters have also injured several residents of the area in the search operation.

So far, the Taliban have not provided any reasons for the group’s fighters’ raid on the Kian resident’s houses. The group had previously conducted search operations in civilian areas to find weapons and or follow suspected resistance fighters.

Daikundi has always been one of the relatively peaceful provinces of Afghanistan, but the Taliban previously announced that the group's opponents are also present in Daikundi. On the same pretext, last year, Taliban fighters killed nine civilians, including four children, in an attack on a house in Siwak area of Daikundi province.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman of the Taliban at that time, called these people "rebels".

Earlier, Mohammad Mohaqiq and Karim Khalili, two political leaders of Hazaras of Afghanistan, have urged human rights groups not to ignore the Taliban’s brutality and crimes in Daikundi province.