Islamabad (AP) —The United States has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to the desperately poor Afghanistan on the verge of an economic disaster, but refused to give political approval to the country’s new Taliban rulers. , Said the Taliban on Sunday.
The statement came at the end of the first face-to-face talks with former enemies since the chaotic withdrawal of US troops at the end of August.
There was no immediate comment from the United States at the weekend meeting.
The Taliban said the talks in Doha, Qatar were “successful,” and Washington released the aid after agreeing not to link humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to the official approval of the Taliban.
The United States has revealed that it is not the preamble to the approval of the Taliban, which came to power on August 15, after the collapse of the US alliance government.
The Taliban political spokesman, Skhail Shaheen, has also promised to confirm that the Taliban sees that the Afghan soil is not being used by militants to launch attacks on other nations. During the talks, the interim foreign minister of the movement told the Associated Press that it had guaranteed the United States.
But on Saturday, the Taliban denied cooperation with Washington to contain an increasingly active Islamic State group in Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s enemy, IS, claims responsibility for many recent attacks, including a suicide bombing on Friday that killed 46 minority Shiite Muslims. Washington considers IS to be the greatest threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.
“We can work on Daesh independently,” Shaheen said when asked if the Taliban would work with the United States to contain Islamic State affiliates. He used the Arabic acronym for IS.
Bill Roggio, a senior researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who tracks radical groups, helps the Taliban hunt down and destroy the Islamic State of Korasan, or an IS member organization in Afghanistan known as ISKP. I agreed not to need.
The Taliban “fought for 20 years to expel the United States, but the last thing they need is the return of the United States. No US support is needed,” said Roggio, who also wrote the Foundation’s Long Turkish War Journal. Perform the difficult and time-consuming task of eradicating the ISKP cell and its limited infrastructure. It has all the knowledge and tools you need to do it. “
IS members do not have the benefits of the safe shelters in Pakistan and Iran that the Taliban had in the fight against the United States, Roggio said. However, he warned that the Taliban’s long-standing support for al-Qaeda has made them unreliable as counterterrorism partners with the United States.
The Taliban provided al-Qaeda with shelter before carrying out the 9/11 attack. It prompted the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and expelled the Taliban from power.
“Given the Taliban’s permanent support for al-Qaeda, it is insane for the United States to think that the Taliban can be a reliable counterterrorism partner,” said Loggio.
During the meeting, US officials were expected to put pressure on the Taliban to allow Americans and others to leave Afghanistan. In their statement, the Taliban said without elaborating that they “promote the principle movement of foreigners.”