Humanitarian Situation in Afghanistan Rapidly Deteriorating, Says Uzbek President

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan announced that during a meeting on Thursday, the Pakistani ambassador said that Uzbekistan's participation in regional projects is highly important.

The road map for the construction of the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway line had been signed in Tashkent in 2019 between the then officials of the three countries.

After taking power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have also held talks with the Uzbek authorities about this railway project.

Pakistan and Uzbekistan have established close ties with the Taliban, but despite the group’s follow-ups and meetings regarding the construction of the railway, this project has not yet been implemented so far.

On Friday, the women movement released the dance video clip and wrote in a statement, "The women and girls of Afghanistan had been reformed before, but the medieval thinking of the Taliban, has confined them to their homes for more than a year."

The video clip released by this women movement shows Afghan women wearing burqas dancing to a Taliban song.

The Taliban considers burqa for women as "the best example of hijab" in Afghanistan and has imposed their desired form of hijab across the country.

Referring to the achievements of women in the last two decades, the Afghanistan Mighty Women Movement said that the movement has not backed down from its "just and humane demands" in Afghanistan.

The movement stressed that the group dance is a warning to the Taliban that Afghan women will not back down from their position until they achieve "freedom, equality, and justice".

The Taliban consider dance and music to be against "Sharia" and have imposed a complete ban on music and other entertainments, particularly for women in Afghanistan.

In the past twenty months since the group has taken control of Afghanistan, the Taliban has also issued decrees attributed to its leader that restricts women’s social life across the country.

On Thursday, the NRF added that in the attack, four Taliban members have been killed and five others have been wounded.

The Taliban has not reacted to the NRF claims yet.

In the past two weeks, it is the third attack by NRF forces on Taliban members. Earlier, NRF announced that they had attacked the Taliban forces at the Pol-e-Matak area in the Jabal Saraj district of Parwan province, causing "heavy casualties" to the Taliban.

The National Resistance Front is one of the two major armed groups fighting the Taliban and has been able to continue the armed resistance against the group in the past two years.

According to this Iranian MP, there are no characteristics of an inclusive government in the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan.

However, Mawlawi Abdul Kabir, the Acting Prime Minister of the Taliban, has repeatedly claimed that the group has formed an inclusive government in Afghanistan.

The Iranian MP said that inclusive governments are formed by people’s participation and through elections, where various political parties come together and reach an agreement.

According to him, the Taliban government has not been a democratically elected government and there is no consensus among political parties about the group’s government.

Jadi said that the Taliban’s government had been formed through a coup and therefore, the senior officials of this group cannot claim that they have formed an inclusive government in Afghanistan.

Sinirlioglu has worked as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye and has a track record of resolving complex negotiations such as the Turkey-Israel relations. So, it is highly unlikely that he has not taken any steps on Afghanistan’s issues as part of his mandate as the special coordinator in the past four weeks. But the question is, what is his main mission and what are the steps he will take?

Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, after hosting the special representatives of the various countries involved in the affairs of Afghanistan last month in Doha, announced that the United Nations will hold another meeting for Afghanistan to coordinate the world's position towards the Taliban, and for this diplomatic coordination, he has chosen a Turkish diplomat as the special coordinator.

Choosing a master negotiator from Türkiye is very meaningful. Türkiye, under the leadership of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has good relations with various stakeholders of the Afghan issue. These players include Iran, Russia, China, and Pakistan, the neighbouring countries of Central Asia, Afghanistan, the European Union, and the United States.

It seems that from among the 21 countries and two international organisations that sent representatives to the Doha meeting on Afghanistan, appointing a special coordinator from Turkiye is a meaningful and interesting choice.

The first mission of the UN special coordinator is to hold talks with the domestic and foreign parties that have an impact on the political destiny of the war-ravaged country.

Sinirlioglu is mandated to hear the opinions of the above 21 countries about the solutions ahead for Afghanistan. Therefore, after establishing his office, it is expected that the Turkish diplomat visits Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Islamabad.

The next destination for the Special Coordinator will be dealing with the current rulers of Afghanistan, and it is expected that Sinirlioglu will soon travel to Kabul or Kandahar to negotiate with the Taliban about their proposed solution to Afghanistan's humanitarian, political, and security crises.

However, in order to reach a lasting solution for Afghanistan, there are two other players – the non-Taliban politicians and the Afghan civil society groups. Without including them in the negotiation and dialogue process, the United Nations’ efforts will most likely fail.

The political parties that laid their arms and joined the state-building process in 2001 and onwards have been major players in the democratic constitutional order of Afghanistan over the last two decades, and apart from the love and hatred towards these parties, they continue to be regarded as major players in Afghanistan issues. These parties and individuals include important political figures who stayed in Kabul after the fall of Afghanistan, such as Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the other players who reside outside Afghanistan, including the Supreme Council of National Resistance for the Salvation of Afghanistan, the National Resistance Front, the former cabinet ministers, Rahmatullah Nabil’s Afghanistan National Liberty Party, and Afghanistan Freedom Front affiliated to Yasin Zia. But, the Taliban opposition has not yet been able to present a united front on the future of Afghanistan, and it is not an easy task for the UN coordinator to gather the diverse views of Afghan political players. It is likely that the UN Special Coordinator will not give much importance to the views of the politicians who have been practically pushed out of the Afghan political spectrum.

However, the fourth major player in the complicated Afghan calculus are women, civil society, and the second generation of Afghan politicians who have emerged in the democratic constitutional order in Afghanistan. These forces have proved their power to mobilise domestically and internationally, and in the two years of Taliban reign in Afghanistan, they have been able to raise their voices in the capitals of different countries against the Taliban's anti-women and monopolistic policies and practices. Diplomats of major players who give high importance to their domestic public opinion, cannot easily ignore this major player and groups of Afghans. At the same time, it is undoubtedly critical and vital for Sinirlioglu to reflect the opinions of these politicians, and groups during his mission on Afghanistan.

According to media reports, the Turkish diplomat has six months to collect all these opinions and submit his recommendations to the UN Secretary-General who intends to hold another meeting on the future of Afghanistan. In addition to the second Afghanistan meeting, the decision about Afghanistan's seat in the United Nations should be determined by the time Sinirlioglu submits his report to the UN. However, with the Taliban's unwillingness in bringing reforms and meeting the human rights preconditions of the international community in Afghanistan, it seems unlikely that the Afghanistan seat in the UN will be handed over to the Taliban in 2023.

In order to address the challenges of Afghanistan, the United Nations must decide how to engage with the Taliban so that, on the one hand, the principles and values of human rights are not violated, and on the other hand, Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban does not become an isolated and forgotten country.

This is where incentives and conditions come into play. For the Taliban, the most important incentive is to build international recognition, and if the Taliban will be recognised through the negotiations of Sinirlioglu, it is more likely to reach an agreement on various issues with the Taliban.

So, it remains to be seen if Sinirlioglu's mission, will end up like that of former US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad's mission, to further strengthen the Taliban or will it break the Taliban’s monopoly of power and will pave the way for Afghanistan to become home to all Afghans.