KABUL (Pajhwok): Last week, China encouraged other countries to have interaction with the Afghanistan caretaker government, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization called attention to the situation in Afghanistan as vital for security and stability in the region and the US announced $150 million in aid for Afghanistan.
- China: Countries should interact with Afghanistan new government
- Pakistan wants relations with Afghanistan strengthened
- Afghan officials: We want positive interaction with the world, but not at the cost of independence
- SCO chief: Attention to Afghanistan’s situation important for regional security, stability
- US to provide $150m, Australia 11m Australian dollars in aid to Afghanistan
- Deadlock persists on frozen Afghanistan money
- Taliban again requested to reopen girls high, secondary schools
- Abdul Rashid Dostum: Conflict is no solution
Casualties
Last week, 30 people were killed and 54 others were injured in separate incidents of violence in Afghanistan.
According to reports, 21 people lost their lives and 33 others were injured when a bomb blast ripped through a mosque in Khairkhana area of Kabul. However, Al Jazeera reported that 20 people were killed and 40 injured in the blast.
Separately, four people were injured, including two security personnel, in a blast in Dasht-Barchi area, and two people were injured in an attack by unknown gunmen in the 8th police district of Kabul.
Also there was a blast in Darul Aman area of Kabul, in which officials said two people were injured, but the emergency hospital on its twitter page wrote that one dead and ten injured people were brought to the hospital from the scene.
One dead body was recovered from a river in Daikundi province and another turned up in central Logar province.
Unknown gunmen killed two persons in Farah and one person in Faryab province.
Officials said disgruntled Taliban commander Maulvi Mehdi was killed near the Iranian border in western Herat province. In Badakhshan, security forces killed three irresponsible gunmen and injured a fourth.
Last week in eastern Nangarhar province, a blast caused by an unexploded ordinance injured three children of a family.
In the previous week, 15 people were killed and 31 others were injured in Afghanistan.
Hundreds of people would get killed and injured each week in the war before August 15 last year.
Interaction with Afghanistan
China has asked other countries to cooperate with the caretaker government of Afghanistan and says the administration under the “Taliban” is getting stronger, but challenges remain”.
Pakistan says Kabul and Islamabad already enjoy close relations and they want to strengthen these relations. Pakistani officials say they are trying and making efforts to implement joint economic projects with Afghanistan and to provide visas to Afghans and facilities them in other areas.
Iran says all the country’s consulates in Afghanistan will urgently issue visas to the needy Afghans.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan said last week that it effectively conveyed the voice of the Afghans to the world during the last one year and had made achievements, but it would take time to restore and normalize relations with the international community.
Last week, Acting Foreign Minister Maulvi Amir Khan Muttaqi told a huge gathering in southern Kandahar province that he had talks with the US and 50 other countries within the framework of shared interests and Afghanistan’s interaction with them was tantamount to an official recognition.
The FM asked the international community to maintain positive relations with Afghanistan and refrain from “giving orders”.
He said their government wanted positive interaction with the world and also expected the world to let Afghans live their own lives like the people of other countries. He said it was people’s mandate that they captured the whole country in 11 days.
Nooruddin Azizi, Acting Minister of Industry and Trade, travelled to Moscow to promote economic and political relations between Afghanistan and Russia.
Acting Minister of Defense Mualvi Mohammad Yaqub Mujahid said yesterday that they did not want interaction, economic and political development at the expense of Afghanistan’s independence and would not accept anyone’s orders against national interests.
Yesterday, on the occasion of Afghanistan’s Independence Day (August 19), the acting government said it was committed to protecting the value of independence as an independent and legitimate system and wanted relations and interaction with the world on the basis of Islam.
Last week, Shanghai Cooperation Organization Secretary-General Zhang Ming told the World Security Conference in Moscow that paying attention to the situation in Afghanistan was important factor for security and stability in the region.
Continued aid to Afghanistan
Last week, the United States announced contributing $150 million in aid to Afghanistan for various fields. Of the money, $80 million will go to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and $40 million to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and 30 million dollars will be spent through UN Women.
Also, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Afghanistan (OCHA) said last week that Australia had provided 11 million Australian dollars in new aid to Afghanistan.
Different statements about frozen money of Afghanistan
After the collapse of the republican system, the United States froze more than nine billion dollars in assets belonging to the central bank of Afghanistan. Seven billion dollars of the money is in America and the rest is in other countries.
Last week, Wall Street Journal reported after the death of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, the United States government had decided not to release the frozen assets of Afghanistan.
However, the US recently said it wanted to release three and a half billion dollars from the frozen money to save the Afghans from hunger.
A few months ago, US president Joe Biden said he would like to give 3.5 billion dollars of from the money to the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
But last week, some of kin of the victims of the September 11 attacks in a letter told Biden that the money was the right of the Afghans and he should not give it to them.
While the caretaker government of Afghanistan says the frozen money belongs to Afghans and should be paid to them. Several protests have been carried out in Afghanistan, asking the US to release the frozen money.
Closure of girls’ schools
The school year started in March this year and on the very first day, the government postponed the opening of girls’ high schools and middle schools and said it was working on a plan to open these schools after completion, but this has not been done yet.
Decades of progress on gender equality and women’s rights in Afghanistan have been wiped out in mere months, said Sima Bahous, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women last week.
In a statement, Bahous said in the year that passed since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan, daily and continuous deterioration in the situation of Afghan women and girls was seen.
She said the Taliban’s meticulously constructed policies of inequality set Afghanistan apart. “It is the only country in the world where girls are banned from going to high school.”
Former President Hamid Karzai once again asked the caretaker government to open girls’ schools above the sixth grade.
Also, Hezb-i-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said education was a God-given right and Afghan girls should be allowed to go to school.
Last week, once again, some women protested and demanded the opening of girls’ schools. However, the Ministry of Education said that the plan to reopen girls’ high schools has not yet been completed.
What politicians say?
Hekmatyar said last week there were problems in the current system and they had recommendations for the same. However, he insisted the current system was not comparable to the previous system and the situation was better now.
Also, Junbish party leader Abdul Rashid Dostum last week said conflict was not a solution and the Afghans should accept each other as Afghans and Muslims.
Some officials and politicians of the previous government, who have formed the “High Council of Resistance for the Salvation of Afghanistan” abroad, attended a virtual meeting and announced their manifesto.
They demanded fair participation of all tribes in government and holding of free, transparent and fair elections, peace talks, establishment of a transitional system and an elected government.
Statements about Doha Agreement
Representatives from civil society, political activists and Afghan refugees living in Canada in a statement said Afghanistan plunged into a crisis of domestic and international legitimacy due to the Doha agreement, which they termed one of the reasons for the fall of the previous government.
Last week former president Ashraf Ghani also said the Doha agreement was a tragedy and he called for peace process in Afghanistan.
However, Zalmay Khalilzad, former US representative for reconciliation in Afghanistan, said last week that the Doha Agreement led to the end of the war in Afghanistan.
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