Iran To Hold Training For Taliban Employees on Agriculture

The Taliban’s Ministry of Agriculture said that Iran has announced a commitment to provide short- and long-term training to the group’s employees.

The Taliban’s Ministry of Agriculture said that Iran has announced a commitment to provide short- and long-term training to the group’s employees.
According to the Taliban’s Ministry of Agriculture, a delegation from this ministry has travelled to Iran and met officials of Iran’s Plant Protection Organisation (PPO).
In a statement on Thursday, the ministry added that during the visit of Mawlawi Attaullah Omari, the Minister of Agriculture of the Taliban to Iran, Atiqullah Muslim, the director of the plant protection directorate, and Mirwais Khogiani, the minister’s technical advisor, held meeting with officials of PPO.
According to the statement, among other issues, the two sides discussed cooperation on the activation of devices to control plant diseases and pests, joint control of desert locusts, import and export of fertilisers, and improving the capacity of employees of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Taliban.
The Taliban delegation announced its readiness for more engagement and cooperation with the Islamic Republic based on the group’s policies.


Sources told Afghanistan International that the Taliban arrested a Kabul University student Mohammad Mehraban Murshid on Wednesday in Kabul.
Earlier, the Taliban had also arrested the student's brother and cousin.
Sources close to Murshid's family said that the Kabul University student had not committed any crime and the Taliban did not explain why they had arrested him.
Less than three months ago, the Taliban had arrested Shams-ur-Rahman Raheeq, Murshid's brother, and Atta-ur-Rahman, his cousin, in Kabul.
According to sources close to this family, Shams ur-Rahman Raheeq was an employee of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) who cooperated with the UN agency in humanitarian activities and the distribution of humanitarian aid. His uncle's son, Atta-ur-Rahman, was also a university student.
UNAMA has not yet commented on the arrest of Raheeq.
The source said that the Taliban had killed Seyed Faqir Rahmani, the father of Murshid, and another one of their relatives in Panjshir last year.
So far, the Taliban has not commented on the arrest of members of this family.

The Taliban’s deputy foreign minister Sher Abbas Stanekzai said that so far not a single country has promised to recognise the Taliban government.
In an interview with TOLOnews, Stanekzai said that if the United States recognises the government of the Taliban, all other countries will follow.
However, a spokesperson of the US State Department had previously said that the recognition of the Taliban is not possible.
Two years have passed since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, so far, no country, even the countries that oppose the US or those with close relations with the Taliban, have recognised the group’s government.
The formation of an inclusive government, respect for human rights, and the Taliban's commitment to international laws are among the issues that many countries have mentioned as conditions for the recognition of the Taliban.
Despite the repeated demands of the Taliban for recognition, the international community said that the recognition of the Taliban depends on ensuring the fundamental rights of women and other human rights values in Afghanistan.
However, the Taliban's deputy foreign minister described the current US-Taliban ties as "normal" relations between the two sides and said that "interactions and mutual negotiations between the United States and the Taliban are ongoing”.
Stanekzai mentioned the appointment of the Charge d'Affaires of the US embassy for Afghanistan in Doha and the meeting of the Taliban delegation with the diplomats of the Western countries as an example of the engagement of the United States with the Taliban.
Stanekzai added that the US had no relationship with the previous Taliban regime, but Washington has now maintained ties with the Taliban government.
He claimed that the US supports the current government of the Taliban and does not cooperate financially and militarily with the opponents of the group.

The Taliban’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation announced on Thursday that 2,589 Afghan refugees entered Afghanistan from Iran through the Islam Qala border.
These people have been registered with the representative office of the International Organisation for Migration to receive humanitarian support.
Officials of the Ministry of Refugees of the Taliban recently announced that more than 952,000 Afghans have returned to Afghanistan from Iran, Pakistan, and some other countries in the past year.
However, with the presence of more than five million Afghan immigrants in Iran, Tehran has accelerated the process of forced deportation of Afghan immigrants in recent months.
Not long ago, Iran's Khorasan Razavi border guard commander said that since the beginning of this year, more than 224,000 Afghan migrants have been deported from Iran and handed over to the Taliban.

The Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) announced that the front’s forces killed two members and wounded another five members of the Taliban at the Kabul-Parwan control gate.
Local sources confirmed the exchange of fire in the area too.
AFF said that its forces launched an attack on the Taliban positions located at the Kabul-Parwan gate last night.
Taliban officials have not reacted to AFF’s claim.
This front said that its forces had not been harmed in the attack. In a video clip released by the AFF, sounds of exchange of gunfire can be heard.
In recent weeks, AFF and the National Resistance Front have increased their attacks against the Taliban across northern provinces of Afghanistan.

Thousands of people showed up at the Taliban’s passport office in Herat city on Thursday after the group announced it’s decision to speed up the distribution of passports in the province.
Taliban officials said that based on the new decision, the group will issue passports to 1,000 applicants in Herat city daily.
Residents of Herat sent photos to Afghanistan International on Thursday which depict a massive crowd outside the Taliban’s passport office in the western city.
According to the report of the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar news agency, Noor Ahmad Islamjar the group’s governor in Herat had made the announcement regarding the increase in the distribution of passports in Herat on Wednesday while inaugurating the new passport office headquarters.
Islamjar said that after this, up to 1,000 passports will be distributed in Herat every day. Bakhtar news agency reported that the increase in the distribution of passports in Herat had been ordered by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban's interior minister.
Local Taliban officials said that previously, 250-300 passports were issued daily in Herat.
Local sources in Herat told Afghanistan International that before this, the Taliban only issued passports to people with health issues.
In the past few months, the Taliban has stopped the process of distributing passports in different provinces of Afghanistan several times. However, local sources previously told Afghanistan International that the sale of passports in the black market continued at exorbitant prices "from two to four thousand dollars per passport".
With the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and the increase in migration of Afghans, the number of applicants applying for passports has increased dramatically across the country.