NRF Leader Participates in Paris Peace Forum

A family member informed Afghanistan International that he was taken to the Taliban’s intelligence office in Kabul, but his current situation and fate remains unknown.

He added: "[Our family members] could not find out about his well-being despite frequent visits and calls to the relevant security agencies of the Taliban."

According to this family member of Nahzat, Taliban fighters arrested him from his house in Kabul.

Nahzat’s family said that he is at the Taliban intelligence office in Kabul, but it is not clear as to which department he was taken to.

Nahzat is one of the analysts who has criticised the Taliban’s policies, mainly in the domestic media.

Last time, he spoke about the deportation of Afghan immigrants from Pakistan and Taliban’s position regarding the matter on one of the private TV channels.

His family has said that it is not yet clear whether the Taliban detained him because of his comments in the interview or for other reasons.

According to them, the Taliban has not given any explanation regarding his detention.

These agreements have been announced in the sectors of transportation, civil aviation, mining, free trade zones, and cooperation with Isfahan Steel Company.

Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, who signed these agreements with the Iranian officials, entered Iran on Sunday, November 5, accompanied by a 30-member delegation from the group.

On Thursday, at the signing ceremony, Iranian officials said that the agreement of the Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation meeting includes cooperation in international road transport, cooperation between the Civil Aviation Organisation of Iran and the Taliban, Cooperation in the Isfahan Steel company and cooperation in commercial "free zones".

On the sidelines of the ceremony and in the presence of journalists, Mehdi Kohi, CEO of Isfahan Steel Company, also said that an agreement was signed between the company and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Taliban.

He expressed that given Afghanistan's numerous mines, Iran is expected to assist Afghanistan in exporting technical and engineering services related to the mining industry.

According to Kohi, Isfahan Steel Company has decided to cooperate with the Taliban in iron mining in Afghanistan.

Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban’s spokesperson, said that USD 5.57 billion will be invested in this project.

Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum in a statement wrote that the project was inaugurated in the presence of the group’s Minister of Mines Shahabuddin Delawar and Noor Ahmad Islamjar, the governor of Taliban in Herat.

According to the statement, the extraction contract of this project has been assigned to domestic and foreign companies.

In August, the Taliban signed contracts for seven mines with domestic and foreign companies worth USD 6.557 billion.

At that time, the Taliban announced that it had signed a contract for four Ghourian iron mining blocks with domestic and foreign companies, including British and Turkish firms.

Shahabuddin Delawar said that the extraction and processing of the project will be conducted inside Afghanistan. He expressed hope that the project will provide social services for the people of the region.

In August, the Taliban's Minister of Mines stated during the signing ceremony for seven mining contracts that these agreements had been under discussion for nearly two years.

Dehqanzada issued a statement to confirm the Afghan consulate’s connection with the Taliban after the Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan tore up the appointment of a letter of a Taliban diplomat in the embassy.

On Thursday, Zia Ahmad Takal, Deputy Spokesperson for the Taliban's Foreign Ministry, published Dehqanzada's video statement and wrote on X social media platform that the Afghan consulate in Khorog is operating under the supervision of the group.

In the video, Dehqanzada responded to the recent statements made by Zahir Aghbar, the Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan.

He considered Aghbar's statements as "irresponsible and lacking in truth". He clarified that "the Afghan consulate in Khorog is directly supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Taliban and operates according to its principles and legal powers”.

The Taliban's foreign ministry recently appointed a person named Faizullah as the first secretary in the Afghan embassy in Tajikistan.

Following his introduction, Aghbar tore up the Taliban diplomat's introduction letter in a press conference on Tuesday, November 7.

Aghbar said that until a legitimate government is formed in Afghanistan, he will protect the country's embassy in Tajikistan. He called this embassy "the trust of the Afghan people".

However, Dehqanzada claimed that after the collapse of the previous government, the scope of activities of the consulate has expanded for services such as issuing passports and issuing visas for Afghans living in Tajikistan.

He acknowledged that there is coordination with the authorities of Tajikistan in the areas of transit, trade, and border issues.

After the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, this is the second time that the meeting of ECO leaders has been held without the presence of representatives of Afghanistan.

The last time, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, the former president of Afghanistan, participated and addressed the ECO summit, was in 2021.

Uzbek officials said that while Afghanistan is a member of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO), due to the internal political changes in the country since August 2021, the country has temporarily not participated in ECO summits.

According to Uzbek officials, Taliban representatives can only participate in ECO summits when the group’s government is recognised by the international community.

The leaders of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Turkey are present at the ECO summit.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the president of Uzbekistan, is the head of this round of the ECO summit.

The participants will discuss economic cooperation, investment, transportation, and the development of industrial cooperation during the ECO summit.

The Economic Cooperation Organisation, which is a regional intergovernmental economic structure, was established in 1984 by Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey, and its headquarters is in Tehran. Afghanistan and seven central Asian countries that had taken independence from the former Soviet Union received membership in the organisation in 1992.