Pro-Taliban Islamist Politician Asks for Strong Relations Between Pak & Taliban

Local sources told Afghanistan International that the men had been arrested after they protested against the decision of the Taliban to hand over the land of Hazaras to the nomads.

Earlier, these four people were arrested when they contacted the office of Abdullah Sarhadi, the Taliban governor in Bamiyan to pursue the legal land dispute with the nomads.

On Thursday, a Taliban delegation visited the Poshte Gharghari village in Punjab district and announced the decision of the Taliban that the lands in the village should be given to the nomads.

According to a video recording from this meeting received by Afghanistan International, the residents of the area told the Taliban delegation that the group’s commission decided unfairly in favour of the nomads without visiting the area last year. They said that they do not accept the decision of the commission to resolve the conflicts of nomads and villagers.

According to this video, a local resident who is a party to the land dispute said to the Taliban delegation, "You want to hand over my centuries-old inherited land to the nomads, morally and conscientiously, this is not right."

After this resident's criticisms, a member of the Taliban said in this meeting, "I am not a judge, I know that the land belongs to you."

This local resident emphasised that he would complain to the Taliban governor in Bamiyan and to the Taliban leadership to pursue this dispute legally.

Local sources said that after the residents protested the decision of the Taliban, the group’s members arrested four people including Ewaz Danish, Ali Hossein Bakshi, Mohammad Gholami, and Anwar Mohammadi, and transferred them to the Punjab District Police Command.

In a statement, the network said that the statements of Rina Amiri, the US special envoy for human rights and women in Afghanistan, are a “betrayal to the trust of Afghan women”.

This network urged the international community and the United Nations to listen to Afghan voices.

In a symbolic move on Friday in Kabul, Women's Unity, and Solidarity Protest Movement too, set on fire pictures of the Taliban, and the group’s supporters.

The movement said, "We, the women of Afghanistan, do not want to negotiate with the Taliban under any circumstances and we want the Taliban not to be recognised. We will not allow any men or women to sacrifice for their own interests."

Following the meeting with the Taliban's foreign minister in Doha, Amiri said that she met with the group's representatives due to "Afghans and human rights defenders insisting on direct engagement with the Taliban”.

Earlier, Amiri’s statements were met with wide-ranging criticisms too. Michael McCaul, Chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, criticised the country’s special envoy for women and human rights in Afghanistan for meeting Taliban members in Doha.

McCaul said, “There are more repressive edicts against Afghan women and girls today than there were when Amiri took office.”

The Chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs stressed that the US representatives’ engagement with the Taliban doesn’t help Afghan women.

Vohidzoda added that according to the country’s statistics, drug smuggling from Afghanistan has increased during the Taliban reign in the country.

On Wednesday, in a press conference in Dushanbe, he said that he does not believe in the Taliban's promises of fighting against drugs in Afghanistan.

The Tajik official explained that the Taliban had promised to crack down on those who produce and smuggle drugs, "but in reality, we don't see that happening”.

Vohidzoda added that in 2021 and after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, 4083 kilograms of narcotics had been discovered in Tajikistan, and in 2022 almost five tonnes of narcotics were seized in the country.

He stressed that most of the seized drugs were in the areas inside Tajikistan which bordered Afghanistan.

In 2022, the Taliban announced a ban on the production and sale of drugs in Afghanistan.

However, earlier the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime announced that Afghanistan produced 80 percent of the world's opium in 2022. The report stated that Afghanistan has become one of the major producers of methamphetamine or crystal in the region.

These Afghan businessmen met with the Taliban’s foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and demanded direct flights between Afghanistan and Qatar.

After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, many diplomats of the former Afghan government refused to hand over embassies of Afghanistan to the Taliban. However, even the embassies taken over by the Taliban have not been able to provide consular services to Afghan citizens.

Taliban’s Foreign Minister was on a visit to Doha to meet US officials. Muttaqi said that the Taliban's negotiation with the US delegation in Qatar was highly positive.

The Taliban's foreign ministry announced that Muttaqi also met with diplomats from the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, South Korea, and Spain during his visit to Doha and asked them to reopen their embassies in Afghanistan.

Nooruddin Azizi, who is on a visit to Kazakhstan, told TASS news agency on Thursday, that the construction of this railway route is in the interest of every stakeholder.

Azizi also suggested that Pakistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan establish a coordination office in Kabul.

In January, the Taliban, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding on the railway route known as the Trans-Afghan project in Islamabad.

However, no country has recognised the Taliban so far, and the timeline for the implementation of this project is not known.

The plan to build the Trans-Afghan railway between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan was presented in 2018 with the aim of creating an economic pathway that would connect Central Asia to the Indian Ocean.

It has been estimated that the construction of the 573 kilometers-long railway route will cost more than four and a half billion dollars. This railway line starts from Termez city and after passing through the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul, it will reach Peshawar in Pakistan.