WASHINGTON – The United States said yesterday that it will recognise a Taliban government in Afghanistan only if it respects the rights of women and shuns extremist movements such as al-Qaeda.
“Ultimately when it comes to our posture towards any future government in Afghanistan, it will depend upon the actions of that government. It will depend upon the actions of the Taliban,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters when asked about recognition.
“A future Afghan government that upholds the basic rights of its people, that doesn’t harbour terrorists and that protects the basic rights of its people including the basic fundamental rights of half of its population – its women and girls – that is a government that we would be able to work with.”
He said that the US negotiator on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, remained in the Taliban’s diplomatic base of Qatar where US officials have been in talks with the insurgents.
“I would say that some of those discussions have been constructive,” Price said.
“But again, when it comes to the Taliban, we are going to look for their actions rather than listen to their words,” he said.
The US military has also reported contact with the Taliban aimed largely at the status of the Kabul airport, which US forces have secured as they airlift thousands of Americans and US-linked Afghans out of the country.
The Taliban imposed draconian rules on women during its 1996-2001 rule, which was ended by the US invasion, including banning education for girls.
The guerrillas on Sunday took over Kabul with surprising ease days before President Joe Biden was to complete a final withdrawal of US forces, ending America’s longest war after 20 years.
President Ashraf Ghani, who just a day earlier had been speaking about the situation by phone with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, fled on Sunday.
Price continued to refer to “President Ghani” but declined to say if Washington still recognised him as Afghanistan’s legitimate leader.
“There has not been a formal transfer of power,” Price said.
No access to US-held Afghan reserves
The Taliban will also be denied access to any Afghan reserves held in US accounts, a Biden administration official told AFP yesterday.
As US forces were evacuating Afghanistan’s capital after the Taliban’s swift takeover, the official said: “Any central bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.”
The central bank’s gross reserves totaled US$9.4 billion (RM39.83 billion) at the end of April, according to the International Monetary Fund.
But most of those funds are held outside of Afghanistan, according to a person familiar with the matter. It was not immediately clear what share of the assets are held in the US.
Biden blames Afghans
President Joe Biden defended the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, even in the face of the Taliban’s stunning victory, which prompted panic in Kabul with thousands mobbing the airport in a desperate attempt to flee.
In his address at the White House – his first public appearance since the Islamist insurgents took control of the country in astonishing fashion at the weekend – he admitted the Taliban advance had unfolded more quickly than expected.
And he did not shy away from heaping criticism at the Western-backed government that was overthrown in Kabul, saying US troops could not defend a nation whose leaders “gave up and fled”, as did Ghani.
“We gave them every chance to determine their own future. We could not provide them with the will to fight for that future,” Biden said, adding he could no longer ask US soldiers to risk their lives in the country, 20 years on.
“Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation-building.” – AFP, August 17, 2021
