Trade Between Iran & Afghanistan Touches USD 500 Million In First 4 Months of 2023

Muttaqi added, "We will not allow Afghanistan to once again become the center of destructive competition between the countries of the world."

After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, at least two resistance fronts, consisting of the former government's military and uprising forces, have been engaged in armed resistance against the group.

The Taliban have called the "Afghanistan Freedom Front" and "National Resistance Front" as "insurgents" and have waged brutal attacks against these fronts’ forces.

On the other hand, the anti-Taliban fronts have often attacked the positions of the Taliban in various regions of Afghanistan and killed Taliban members.

Previously, American and European Union officials had said that they do not support the armed resistance in Afghanistan.

Muttaqi considered the international community's approach of not supporting the armed resistance in Afghanistan to be the result of the Taliban government's "balanced foreign policy".

On Tuesday, the Taliban's foreign minister also accused the international community of using the issue of recognition of the Taliban government as a pressure tool, and stressed that no specific conditions have been communicated for the recognition of the Taliban.

Muttaqi added that the formation of an inclusive government, human rights, and security issues are "the excuses of the international community" not to recognise the Taliban.

The Taliban’s foreign minister said that the group’s government is "inclusive in every sense" and representatives of various regions and ethnic groups are present in the Taliban’s cabinet.

This senior Taliban official emphasised once again that the group’s government seeks political and economic relations with all the countries of the world.

On the other hand, the foreign minister of the Taliban claimed that the embassies of this group are active in some countries and the fact that the embassies of some countries are open in Kabul "means recognition" of the Taliban.

However, Muttaqi said that the international community would normalise its relations with the Taliban "in the near future".

Muttaqi also said that "Pakistan's existing problems are an internal matter and we have always given guarantees on our behalf” to Islamabad.

Despite several border clashes, Qomi said that the two sides have not had an acute border conflict in the past two years.

This is even though after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the group’s border forces have clashed with Iranian border guards several times.

At the same time, Qomi said that Iranian experts had visited the Helmand River, and Deh Rawood district of Uruzgan, to address the water rights issues.

Fars news agency quoted the Iranian ambassador as saying, “This is the first time that Iranian experts visited the Deh Rawood water measurement station."

Kazemi Qomi added that according to the 1973 treaty, the Iranian side can question and verify the claim of the other party regarding the lack of water in Helmand River.

According to Tasnim, Mohammad Hossein Velayati was in Kabul for 10 days and was detained when he wanted to return to Iran.

Tasnim News Agency added that despite follow-ups with the Taliban, the group has not explained the reasons behind the detention of this photojournalist.

According to the media reports, the Taliban detained Velayati while he was on a 10-day non-business visit to Kabul and had official permission to stay in Afghanistan.

This is the first case of detention of a media worker affiliated with Islamic Republic organisations by the Taliban in the last two years.

The most targeted groups affiliated with the former government were Afghan National Army (ANA) members, Afghan National Police (ANP), National Directorate of Security (NDS) officials, and Afghan Local Police (ALP), the report stated.

The report, covering the period from the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021 to 30 June 2023, documented at least 800 instances of extrajudicial killing, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and ill-treatment and enforced disappearance carried out against individuals affiliated with the former government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and its security forces.

“UNAMA’s report presents a sobering picture of the treatment of individuals affiliated with the former government and security forces of Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of the country,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urged stakeholders to uphold their obligations under international human rights law by preventing further violations.

Human rights violations against former government officials and ANDSF members have been recorded across all 34 provinces; with the greatest number of violations recorded in Kabul, Kandahar and Balkh provinces.

The report stated that there had been recorded instances of torture and ill-treatment carried out by Taliban security force members, including beatings with pipes, cables, verbal threats and abuse. UNAMA also heard from family members whose relatives had been arrested or gone missing, their bodies found days or even months later.

UNAMA has documented at least 14 instances of enforced disappearance of former government officials and ANDSF members and also documented more than 424 arbitrary arrests and detentions of former government officials and ANDSF members since the Taliban takeover.

Apart from this, more than 144 instances of torture and ill treatment of former government officials and ANDSF members by de facto security force members have been documented in the UNAMA report.

The UNAMA report called on the Taliban to clarify the terms of the general amnesty, to ensure that it is upheld and to conduct credible, transparent criminal investigations into alleged human rights violations against former government officials and ANDSF members.

When the Taliban had seized power in Kabul on 15 August 2021, its spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had tweeted that they would not “seek revenge from anyone, those who had jobs in the military and civilian departments of Kabul administration are pardoned and at peace”, basically announcing their general amnesty.

Khawaja Mohammad Asif, the former defence minister of Pakistan, had described the Afghan Taliban as "freedom fighters". So, in response, Dawar said that Asif should also consider TTP the same.

The former defence minister of Pakistan, who is a prominent member of the Pakistan Muslim League Party, had criticised former Afghan vice-president Amrullah Saleh for his comments on the possibility of the collapse of Pakistan like the Soviet Union.

Asif wrote that Saleh lost his position in Afghanistan to "a group of freedom fighters". He described the Afghan Taliban as "fearless fighters equipped only with fearless spirit of taking on the mighty NATO”.

Meanwhile, Khawaja Asif and other Pakistani officials consider the TTP group, which has the same ideology as the Afghan Taliban, to be a terrorist organisation.

In this case, Mohsin Dawar, a member of Pakistan's House of Representatives, wrote on social media platform X, “If one considers the Taliban in Afghanistan as "freedom fighters", then by these standards, you'd consider the TTP as the same.”

He added, "The reason Pakistan suffers from terrorism is because of this apologist attitude and confusion of mainstream politicians towards the Taliban."