Afghan crisis: Propaganda against Taliban false, says Pakistani minister
The Taliban, who occupied the whole of Afghanistan at lightning speed, announced Afghanistan’s independence day on Thursday. The insurgents took control of the capital city of Kabul on Sunday, after the previous government backed by the United States fell and Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the propaganda by former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani’s government against the Taliban has proven to be false as they declared a general amnesty across the war-torn country and also said there will be no ban on the education of girls, according to a report by the Dawn on Thursday.
Two days back, the Taliban announced amnesty across the country and urged women to join their government. “The Islamic Emirate doesn’t want women to be victims,” Taliban’s cultural commission member Enamullah Samangani told the Associated Press on Tuesday, adding the Islamic Emirate didn’t want women to be victims and they should be in government structure as per the Shariah law.
Underlining the fact that peace and stability in Afghanistan was crucial for Pakistan, Qureshi told reporters that that entire world was privy to the fact that earlier there was a “corrupt setup and system in Afghanistan”, the Dawn report said.
“In the given situation, it was extremely important to ensure safety and security as well as protection of rights of the Afghan people,” Qureshi had said on Wednesday.
The Pakistani minister spoke to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Wednesday over the developments taking place in Afghanistan. Qureshi informed the Chinese foreign minister of Pakistan’s efforts to evacuate personnel and staff of diplomatic missions, international organisations, media and others from the war-ravaged country.
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His remarks come at a time when videos on social media and reports from Afghanistan say that Taliban fighters are patrolling the streets with armed weapons, looking for ex-government staff. A video accessed by Fox News shows women being beaten up for not wearing a burqa in a public place. CNN carried an account of one of the girls in a remote village in Faryab province, in which she described how Taliban fighters forcibly entered their house and beat her mother to death over refusal to cook food for the fighters.
The Taliban, who occupied the whole of Afghanistan at lightning speed, announced Afghanistan’s independence day on Thursday. The insurgents took control of the capital city of Kabul on Sunday, after the previous government backed by the United States fell and Ashraf Ghani fled the country, bringing a complete stop to a nearly 20-year-old campaign where the United States tried to transform Afghanistan.
(With AP inputs)
