Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada on Thursday said that he is ready to engage with the international community within a Sharia framework.
A high-level gathering of around 2,500 participants including Islamic clerics, civil society activists, Taliban officials and officials of the former Afghan government was held in Kandahar, reported Tolo News.
There was no media coverage during the speech of the Taliban’s supreme leader. Meanwhile, the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said that the Taliban has represented Afghanistan in a “better way” around the world, reported Tolo News. “No one should test the Afghans.
Let these poor and proud people live happily,” he said. Muttaqi said that the Taliban wants good relations with all countries, but relations after 20 years of war with some countries cannot be expected to be normalized quickly.
“Afghanistan will not be the ground for the conflict of world powers, and the Afghan soil will not be used against anyone,” he added.
“There is no land in the country which is not under the control of the Islamic Emirate,” said the acting Minister of Vice and Virtue, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi. “All of the girls are your girls. The facilitation of education for them is the wish of all Afghans,” said Abdul Samad Madani, a trader.
The gathering is the second largest to be held since the Taliban came to power, after the meeting of clerics in Kabul. Since the Taliban regime took control of Afghanistan, blasts and attacks have become a regular affair with unabated human rights violations involving ceaseless murder of civilians, destroying mosques and temples, assaulting women, and fueling terror in the region.
The ongoing economic crisis in Kabul has caused abject poverty in the region. As per analysts, the primary reason for the rise in poverty is due to political changes.
Moreover, following the Taliban regime in the country, many private businesses have stopped operating as well impacting the country even more. Millions of Afghans are on the brink of starvation as the country reels from a humanitarian crisis.
Afghanistan also has the highest level of suffering measured for any country since 2005.
Moreover, the United Nations mission in Geneva said that the latest United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) report reveals a “disturbing and consistent pattern of human rights violations” by the Taliban.
The UN mission in Afghanistan released a report outlining the human rights situation prevailing in Afghanistan over the 10 months since the Taliban takeover.
The mission said that while the report highlights aspects of the Taliban’s human rights violations, it does not fully reflect the number of violations and abuses reflected in this report, and the full scope of the deterioration of the human rights situation since August of last year.
