Five Contracts Worth $600 Million Signed For Cement Mining In 3 Years, Claims Taliban

This movement of protesting women has also called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pave the way for the trial of the leaders of the Taliban group.

The Purple Saturdays Movement in a statement said, "Due to the ban on the travel of the Taliban leader and the head of the Supreme Court abroad, we are very concerned that the request for the issuance of an arrest warrant for Taliban officials will not be implemented and will only be symbolic."

These protesting women have stressed that the leaders of the Taliban group should be prosecuted without distinction into "good" and "bad".

They also called for the arrest warrants for Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani; Higher Education Minister Neda Mohammad Nadeem; Virtue Promotion Minister Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, and Justice Minister Abdul Hakim Shari.

The Purple Saturdays Movement said that these individuals "are contaminated with the blood of thousands of innocent people, including women and children, by planning and executing hundreds of suicide and explosive attacks, in addition to committing widespread crimes against humanity".

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, previously announced that he had sent a request for the arrest of Hibatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the Taliban's chief justice, to the International Criminal Court.

He said that Afghanistan's mineral products will be transported through this corridor.

The member of the Industries and Mines Commission of the Islamic Republic of Iran told Tasnim News Agency, "Afghanistan has rich mines which can be processed and turned into final products by using Iran's technical know-how."

According to him, this corridor has access to Iran's Bandar Abbas, and recently about 10,000 tons of cargo from China have been transported through this route.

A member of the Industries and Mines Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly announced plans to hold an economic conference in Iran and said that Afghan businessmen are also invited to form more trade cooperation.

"Our goal is to create common economic capacities and strengthen the development-oriented outlook in this region," he said.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, like other countries, does not recognise the Taliban, but it has diplomatic and economic relations with the group and has handed over the Afghan embassy in Tehran to the Taliban.

In November 2024, the Taliban administration announced that the value of trade with Iran had reached more than $1.8 billion.

Mousavi said that Iran had refused to sign the comprehensive strategic cooperation document due to the previous Afghan government's insistence on listing the Taliban as a terrorist group.

In a note, Rasoul Mousavi discussed the upcoming visit of Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Afghanistan and the need to sign a comprehensive strategic cooperation document with the Taliban.

The document was not signed during the previous Afghan government because of Iran's refusal to list the Taliban as a terrorist group, he said.

In the note, published by the IRAF News Agency, Mousavi called Abbas Araghchi's upcoming visit to Afghanistan important and stressed that the Taliban should pay attention to Tehran's opposition to the designation of this group as a terrorist group.

"During the previous Afghan government, long negotiations were underway between Iran and Afghanistan on a document called the Comprehensive Document on Iran-Afghanistan Cooperation, which progressed to the final stage, but was stopped due to a dispute and was not signed," he wrote.

"At that time, the Afghan side insisted that the Taliban be designated as a terrorist group and that the two countries declare their cooperation against the group," Mousavi added, explaining that the Islamic Republic had rejected the request due to the continuation of the Doha talks between former Afghan government officials and the Taliban.

The former assistant to the Iranian foreign minister also said that one of the most important gaps in Iran-Taliban relations is the lack of a comprehensive long-term cooperation agreement.

The comprehensive document on strategic cooperation between Iran and Afghanistan, which was discussed in the fields of economy, culture, security, refugees, and water since 2014, was not finalised until the end of the republic's rule in Afghanistan. There are no details of this document.

According to the report, the German government is planning another flight to Afghanistan.

The newspaper quoted the German Interior Ministry as saying that the flight of these Afghan refugees will be carried out with the help of a regional partner.

The exact date of the deportation has not been announced, but according to information from the German Interior Ministry, their flight is likely to take place shortly before the German parliamentary elections on February 23.

After a deadly knife attack in Germany, the German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that she was working hard to deport more criminals to Afghanistan.

German police earlier announced that they had arrested a 28-year-old Afghan man on charges of killing two people, including a child.

Germany began deporting Afghan criminals in September this year. The flight was carrying 28 people and was transferred from Leipzig Airport to Kabul.

UNAMA said that Afghan girls have been deprived of their basic right to education since the past 1,225 days.

Roza Otunbayeva, head of UNAMA, has called the Taliban's ban on girls' education a tragedy for millions of Afghan girls.

She stressed that no country has made progress by leaving half of its population behind and that the Taliban should allow girls to return to school.

The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on Friday (January 24) said in a statement that the organisation is celebrating World Education Day with "deep regret and concern" for the millions of Afghan girls deprived of education.

"It is a blatant injustice and a tragedy that millions of Afghan girls have been deprived of their right to education. No country can ever prosper by disabling and abandoning half of its population."

According to the UNAMA statement, 1,225 days have passed since the Taliban closed girls' schools above the sixth grade to Afghan girls.

The ban on girls' education in schools above the sixth grade and university has been widely condemned domestically and internationally.

After banning girls' education, the Taliban has repeatedly said for more than three years that the move is "temporary" and has ignored calls for the reopening of schools.