Muttaqi: No anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan

PESHAWAR (Pajhwok): Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi says 75 percent of Afghan schoolgirls have resumed their studies.

He blamed the global fraternity, which has been focused on women’s education, for paying little heed to the payment of teachers’ salaries.

Clearing teachers’ salaries is becoming difficult due to the freezing of Afghanistan’s reserves by Western countries.

Speaking at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad on Friday, Muttaqi said there was no justification for the sanctions imposed by rights groups on Afghanistan.

He claimed 500,000 civil servants were being paid and not a single employee had been fired on political grounds. No woman worker had been sacked, he insisted.

Afghanistan had around 3,000 clinics and hospitals, which were still operational, the visiting foreign minister maintained.

The sitting interim cabinet, having full powers, had already met the international demand for an inclusive government, he added.

Muttaqi said the Taliban government wanted Afghanistan to be no longer a conflict ground for major global powers.

For the first time in 43 years, Afghanistan had a central and sovereign government that controlled every inch of its territory, he asserted.

He commented: “We must not be prisoners of the past. Peace in Afghanistan means peace in Pakistan and vice versa. We are pursuing a balanced policy.”

There were no longer anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan and the new government was trying its best not to let anyone use its territory against any country, the minister concluded.

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