Countries Eager To Interact With Us, Says Afghan Taliban Spokesperson

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said "some countries that failed in Afghanistan" over the past 20 years are preventing the Taliban from interacting with the international community, Afghanistan-based Tolo News reported.

Mujahid said a number of countries are still eager to interact with the Taliban.

"The countries that failed in Afghanistan, and the countries that shamefully left, they did not normalize their interactions and are preventing the Taliban from having good interactions with other nations," Mujahid said, as quoted by Tolo News.

The Taliban spokesperson emphasized that the Taliban will not accept the demands of the international community to recognize the Islamic Emirate.

"They (countries) had their own goals in Afghanistan, and they are still working toward these goals, but the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has fought to preserve its independence, therefore it will maintain its position," Mujahid said.

According to some political analysts, the international world will not engage with the current Afghan government until the Islamic Emirate lifts its restrictions on women and reconsiders its position regarding the international community's demands, according to Tolo News.

"The Islamic countries don't want to recognize (the Taliban) as long as girls' schools are closed because they don't want to recognize an inappropriate example of women's rights," said Tariq Farhadi, a political analyst, as quoted by Tolo News.

"This interaction faces three primary obstacles. The red lines and the values on either side do not match, to start. The two sides have differing perspectives on governance," said Salim Kargar, another political analyst.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan's acting Foreign Minister under the caretaker Taliban regime, Amir Khan Muttaqi in an op-ed for Al Jazeera, said that the primary cause of the ongoing economic crisis in the country is the imposition of sanctions and banking restrictions by the US. He said that this impedes and delays efforts to address the humanitarian crisis, Tolo News reported.

The op-ed is titled: "Afghanistan is ready to work with the US, but sanctions must go."

Muttaqi said that a unique opportunity has emerged to embark on rapprochement between Afghanistan and the world.

"We also understand that the globalised nature of modern relations means that all state actors must learn to live in harmony and peace with one another," he said. "Such relations should be founded on the immutable principles of equality, mutual respect and cooperation through the pursuit of shared interests. Bearing this in mind, the current government of Afghanistan once again extends its hand of positive engagement to the world," he said, according to Tolo News.

Muttaqi also wrote about the achievements of the Islamic Emirate since it came to power "despite the fact that we inherited a collapsed narco-state, with an emptied treasury, unpaid bills, millions of drug addicts, rampant corruption, universal poverty and unemployment and a stagnant economy."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)