Qatari Holds Joint Labour Committee Meeting With Taliban

Kirby said that the United States will continue to work with Pakistan on counterterrorism.

Kirby said at a news conference on Wednesday that Islamabad has never been a "technical ally" of the United States and that no formal treaty has been signed between the two countries. He added that the United States has cooperated with Islamabad over the past two decades in countering terrorist threats on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Despite this, the United States and Pakistan have cooperated over the past several decades to counter the threat of terrorism, which "still exists in the backbone of Afghanistan and Pakistan," Kirby said at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday, January 15.

These threats still linger on the Afghan-Pakistan border, he said.

Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of supporting militants opposed to the country, but the Taliban have always claimed that they do not do so.

Islamabad has repeatedly called on the Afghan Taliban over the past three years to expel TTP militants from Afghanistan and hand over its leaders to Pakistan.

For the past few decades, Pakistan has been an important partner of the United States, first in the fight against Soviet influence in Afghanistan and then in the fight against terrorism.

However, Pakistan sheltered Taliban leaders during the two-decade presence of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan, and according to officials of the former Afghan government, Islamabad supported the group's war.

Amir Khan Muttaqi also said that the international community's assistance should be such that it has long-term benefits for Afghanistan.

The fourth coordination meeting between the Taliban administration and United Nations agencies was held on Wednesday, January 15, at the Taliban's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul.

The meeting discussed economic stability, health and nutrition, education, economy, food security, counter-narcotics, climate change, refugees and internally displaced persons.

Amir Khan Muttaqi said at the meeting, "The assistance of the international community should be provided based on the needs and priorities of the Afghan people."

He said that permanent resettlement of refugees returning from neighbouring countries, providing alternative livelihoods for farmers, ensuring Afghanistan's access to international financial resources in the field of climate change, supporting the health sector, and paying attention to the mine clearance sector are among Afghanistan's priorities today.

The Taliban's foreign minister called on UN agencies to change the type of aid to Afghanistan from humanitarian to developmental aid.

"It must be ensured that aid is spent on long-term infrastructure systems, efforts must be made to use domestic production to increase the positive impact of aid," he explained.

This comes close on the heels of the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump and there is a possibility of cutting off the country's aid to Afghanistan.

The organisation stressed that food access restrictions coupled with climate change have limited people's ability to provide for their families.

The United Nations on Wednesday, January 15, expressed concern over the critical situation of malnutrition and food access restrictions in Afghanistan.

The WFP is helping millions of people, including providing children with food in schools, it wrote.

According to a report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in the first nine months of 2024, 343,000 children with acute malnutrition were admitted to hospitals in Afghanistan for treatment.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported in September last year that food insecurity has become a growing crisis in Afghanistan, with four million infants and pregnant mothers suffering from malnutrition.

International organisations say that due to the spread of poverty and hunger, an increasing number of Afghan children are at risk of malnutrition.

The Taliban's embassy in Islamabad announced on Wednesday, January 15, that the chargé d'affaires of the embassy, Sardar Ahmad Shakib, in a meeting with Philippa Candler, the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Pakistan, expressed "serious" concern over the arrest and harassment of Afghan refugees in the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad by the Pakistani police.

Shakib said that police were searching the homes of migrants and even arresting Afghan nationals with visas and legal documents, including women and children, and in some cases demanding "bribes and large sums of money".

The statement from the Taliban embassy also said that Pakistani police are telling Afghan refugees that after January 15, all Afghans with or without legal documents should be evacuated from the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

"The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) should defend the rights of the holders of Sharp Office tokens (a UN partner agency in Islamabad and Sindh), POR Card and other cards and take the necessary measures to facilitate them," the Taliban diplomat said.

According to a statement from the Taliban embassy, Philippa Candler, the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Pakistan, said that she has held several meetings with the Pakistani government to end this practice with Afghan refugees.

"She will discuss this issue with Pakistani officials again in the coming days," the statement said.

For the past two weeks, Pakistani police in the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad have started arresting, harassing and deporting Afghan refugees. Police have also arrested migrants who have fled to Pakistan for fear of Taliban reprisals over the past three years.

OCHA added that 10 people died during this period due to extreme cold weather or traffic accidents caused by snowfall.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Afghanistan has released its weekly report on the humanitarian situation in the countries of the region.

According to OCHA, heavy snowfall and rain have caused casualties and damage to people's homes in the northern and eastern regions of Afghanistan in the past two weeks.

According to the report, cold weather has killed two people in the mountainous district of Faryab, while snowfall and extreme cold have claimed the lives of three people in Andarab district of Baghlan province.

OCHA also announced that snowfall and rain caused traffic accidents on various highways, and five people died following a traffic accident on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway.

Heavy rainfall and flooding in recent months have caused extensive financial and human losses to the people.