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By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies
DOHA/ KABUL/ WASHINGTON/ MADRID/ ISLAMABAD: : The Taliban will hold joint face-to-face talks with European and US envoys, the EU said on Monday, as the Afghan leaders pursue their diplomatic push for international support.
Afghanistan’s new rulers are seeking recognition, as well as assistance to avoid a humanitarian disaster, after they returned to power in August following the withdrawal of US troops after 20 years of war.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the world to donate more money to Afghanistan to head off its economic collapse, but also slammed the Taliban’s “broken” promises to Afghan women and girls.
EU spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said officials from the US and Europe would meet representatives of Afghanistan’s new authorities for talks facilitated by Qatar in Doha on Tuesday.
She said the meeting would “allow the US and European side to address issues” including free passage for people wanting to leave, access for humanitarian aid, respect for the rights of women and preventing Afghanistan becoming a haven for “terrorist” groups.
“This is an informal exchange at a technical level. It does not constitute recognition of the ‘interim government’,” she said.
The Taliban badly need allies as Afghanistan’s economy is in a parlous state with international aid cutoff, food prices rising and unemployment spiking.
The regime, still yet to be recognized as a legitimate government by any other country, is also facing a threat from Daesh, who have launched a series of deadly attacks.
A meeting with the EU was announced earlier by the Taliban’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, days after he led its first in-person talks with United States officials since the American pullout.
“We want positive relationships with the whole world. We believe in balanced international relations. We believe such a balanced relationship can save Afghanistan from instability,” Muttaqi said in translated remarks at an event in Qatar.
Ahead of the talks, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc was looking to bolster its direct aid to the Afghan people in an effort to stave off “collapse”.
“We cannot ‘wait and see’. We need to act, and act quickly,” Borrell said after discussions with EU development ministers.
The international community is facing a tough balancing act trying to get urgently-needed aid to Afghans without endorsing Taliban rule.
Guterres underscored discontent with the Taliban over its treatment of women despite vows it would not repeat its earlier hardline rule.
“I am particularly alarmed to see promises made to Afghan women and girls by the Taliban being broken,” he told reporters.
Without the participation of women “there is no way the Afghan economy and society will recover”, Guterres said.
Security warning
Afghanistan’s boys were allowed to return to secondary schools three weeks ago, but girls have been told to stay at home along with women teachers in much of the country, though they can attend primary school.
Asked about the exclusion of girls, Muttaqi said schools had been closed because of COVID-19, a threat he said had lessened.
“COVID-19… has been controlled and incidences are very few, and with the reduction of that risk, opening of schools has already started and every day it is increasing,” he said.
Muttaqi also insisted there was no discrimination against the Shia community and also claimed that Daesh was being tamed.
“Whatever preparations they had made have been neutralized 98%,” he said.
Underlining the shaky security situation, the US and Britain warned their citizens on Monday to avoid hotels in Afghanistan, and singled out one hotel in Kabul.
“US citizens who are at or near the Serena Hotel should leave immediately,” the US State Department said, citing “security threats” in the area.
The Serena, a luxury facility popular with business travelers and foreign guests, has twice been the target of attacks by the Taliban.
In 2014, just weeks before the presidential election four teenage gunmen with pistols hidden in their socks managed to penetrate several layers of security, killing nine people including an AFP journalist and members of his family.
On the other side, an interpreter who helped rescue US President Joe Biden in a 2008 Afghan snowstorm has escaped Afghanistan with his family after hiding from the Taliban for weeks, the State Department confirmed Monday.
After crossing into Pakistan over land, Aman Khalili and his family flew on a US government aircraft to Doha, Qatar, where thousands of refugees from Afghanistan are being processed by US officials for immigration, a State Department spokesperson told media.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Khalili, his wife and five children, who were unable to flee in the August emergency airlift following the takeover by the Taliban, escaped the country with the help of Afghan-American and veterans groups.
In 2008, Khalili was working as an interpreter for US forces when then senator Biden and two other lawmakers, Chuck Hagel and John Kerry, visited Afghanistan.
When a snowstorm forced their helicopter to land in a remote area, Khalili joined a small military Quick Reaction Force which drove from Bagram airbase into the mountains to rescue them.
Thirteen years later, Khalili was unable to get his application to migrate to the United States processed in time to be evacuated as the Taliban seized power.
“Hello Mr. President: Save me and my family,” he was quoted as saying in the Wall Street Journal at the very end of August, when the airlift of some 120,000 people escaping the country ended.
In response, White House press Secretary Jen Psaki said the government will help him.
“We will get you out. We will honor your service,” she said.
After the airlift ended, Khalili and his family hid in a safe house in Kabul, with the help of Afghan Americans and US veterans.
Unable to board a refugee flight from Mazar-i-Sharif, in part because they lacked Afghan passports, Khalili and his family traveled overland surreptitiously for two days to the Pakistan border, which they crossed on October 5.
The Journal reported that the State Department is fast-tracking a plan to provide the family with special immigration visas for the United States.
Madrid was awaiting the arrival of Afghans who had worked for Spain, whose evacuation it had arranged via Pakistan, the Spanish prime minister’s office said Monday.
It said that the ministers “will greet the first flight with Afghan refugees arriving from Islamabad on Monday at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) at the Torrejon de Ardoz airbase” near Madrid.
Spanish media, including daily El PaÃs and National Radio, reported that Madrid would bring close to 250 Afghan citizens, who entered Pakistan in advance and would be flown out on military transport planes.
It was not clear when the second flight is expected.
Spanish evacuations have been weeks in the making, with Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares visiting Pakistan and Qatar in early September to lay the groundwork.
Madrid evacuated over 2,000 people, most of them were Afghans who had worked for Spain and their families, during the western withdrawal as the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August but the flights had to stop once the last American troops that had been protecting the Afghan capital’s airport left.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in August that Spain would not “lose interest in the Afghans who had remained” in their country but wanted to leave.
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, on Friday urged the bloc’s member states to host a “minimum” of between 10,000 and 20,000 more Afghan refugees.
“To welcome them, we have to evacuate them, and we are getting down to it, but it’s not easy,” he said in Madrid.
The EU has said a demand by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to take in 42,500 Afghan refugees over five years can be achieved although any decision lies with member states.
Earlier, days after dozens of people were killed at a mosque in an attack claimed by Daesh, the United States and Britain warned their citizens on Monday to avoid hotels in Afghanistan.
The Taliban which seized power in August and declared an Islamic emirate are seeking international recognition and assistance to avoid a humanitarian disaster and ease Afghanistan’s economic crisis but, as Daesh transitions from a rebel army to a governing power, they are struggling to contain the threat from the Afghanistan chapter of Daesh.
“US citizens who are at or near the Serena Hotel should leave immediately,” the US State Department said, citing “security threats” in the area.
“In light of the increased risks you are advised not to stay in hotels, particularly in Kabul (such as the Serena Hotel),” Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office added.
Since the Taliban takeover, many foreigners have left Afghanistan, but some journalists and aid workers remain in the capital.
The well-known Serena, a luxury hotel popular with business travellers and foreign guests, has twice been the target of attacks by the Taliban.
In 2014 just weeks before the presidential election four teenage gunmen with pistols hidden in their socks managed to penetrate several layers of security, killing nine people, including an AFP journalist and members of his family.
In 2008, a suicide bombing left six dead.
US aid pledge discussed
In August, during a chaotic evacuation of foreign nationals and at-risk Afghans, NATO countries issued a chorus of warnings about an imminent threat, telling people to stay away from Kabul airport.
Hours later, a suicide bomber detonated in a crowd gathered around one of the airport gates, killing scores of civilians and 13 American troops.
The attack was claimed by Daesh, which has since targeted several Taliban guards, and claimed a devastating bomb attack in Kunduz city on Friday that ripped through a mosque during Friday prayers, the bloodiest assault since US forces left the country in August.
Over the weekend, senior Taliban and US delegations held their first face-to-face talks in the Qatar capital Doha since the US withdrawal.
The talks “focused on security and terrorism concerns and safe passage for US citizens, other foreign nationals and our Afghan partners,” according to State Department spokesman Ned Price.
“Human rights, including the meaningful participation of women and girls in all aspects of Afghan society,” were also raised, Price said in a statement.
According to the State Department, the discussions were “candid and professional” and US officials reiterated that “the Taliban will be judged on its actions, not only its words”.
The Taliban said the United States had agreed to send aid to Afghanistan, though the US said the issue had only been discussed, and that any assistance would go to the Afghan people and not the Taliban government.
“US representatives stated that they will give humanitarian assistance to Afghans and will provide facilities for other humanitarian organizations to deliver aid,” the Taliban’s foreign ministry said, warning that the aid should not be linked to political issues.
Meanwhile, Brigadier General Piraz Ata Sharifi, the chief bodyguard of then president Ashraf Ghani, claimed that Ghani fled the country with bags containing billions of dollars before Kabul fell to the Taliban.
In his startling revelation, the general of the presidential palace guard said, “I have a (CCTV) recording [from the palace] which shows that an individual at the Afghan Bank brought a lot of money to Ghani before he left.”
The Afghan general, who went underground after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, told the Mail Online, “Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of dollars. There were many big bags and they were heavy.”
He maintained that the money was supposed to be for the currency exchange market, adding that each Thursday; dollars were brought for that purpose.
“Instead, it was taken by the president. Ghani knew in the end what would happen. So he took all the money and escaped,” he added.
The Afghan general said that he never thought the president would do that. He maintained that he would share evidence when he will be at a safe place.
On August 16, the general tried and failed to reach the airport. Since then, his extended family, 14 members, including his university-educated wife and three children, the youngest of whom is a son aged nine months, has been on the run.
The president never told them he was going, he said, adding, “They just escaped and left me behind.”
Recalling his memories, General Sharifi said that on August 15, he left home to go to work at the presidential palace as usual.
“Then I went to the defence ministry ahead of the president. He was supposed to go there to talk about the defence of Kabul (against the approaching Taliban)”
The general said, “One of my jobs was to disarm the soldiers on guard at the ministry before the president arrived, for his security.”
“We were waiting for the president there. But then I got a call to say that instead of coming to the defence ministry, the president had gone to the airport.”
He said that the defence minister had also fled.
Sharifi said he has one gun and one bullet. “If the Taliban come here, I will kill myself. If they capture me they will kill me anyway,” he added.
Posters saying he is wanted have appeared at Taliban security positions all over Kabul.
They show the general’s mugshot and the following words, “[This is] General Piraz Sharifi, who also has the nickname ‘Ata’.”
“There is a reward for such information of one million Afghanis.” One million Afghanis is the equivalent to £10,000.
