An American delegation held talks in Doha on lifting the freezing of foreign reserves for Afghanistan with a high-ranking Taliban delegation, while Taliban leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada participated for the first time since the movement came to power in an extensive heart meeting in the capital, Kabul.
The State Department said that a US delegation headed by the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West met in Qatar with senior representatives of the Taliban movement and Afghan technocrats, headed by Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki, on June 29 and 30.
The State Department stated - in a statement - that the United States expressed its condolences after the earthquakes that struck Afghanistan and caused casualties, and provided support estimated at 55 million dollars.
The statement confirmed that the two delegations discussed US measures to maintain 3 billion and 500 million dollars of the reserves of the Afghan Central Bank for the benefit of the Afghan people, he said.
The US delegation expressed concerns about the Taliban's increased interference in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and the continuing and expanding restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and girls were discussed.
The statement revealed that US officials have expressed concern about the continued presence of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and other terrorist organizations in Afghanistan.
Security and Finance
On the other hand, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a tweet on Twitter that Mottaki highlighted the positive changes with the arrival of the new government to power, describing the security situation in Afghanistan as exemplary.
Balkhi quoted US diplomats as saying that they prefer participation and seek the stability of Afghanistan.
The United States has not recognized the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan since the movement seized power in August 2021.
Billions of dollars in assets held abroad were then frozen, and Western international aid on which the country had depended for 20 years had ceased, and today it has come by train since the Taliban returned to power.
And last February, US President Joe Biden froze $7 billion in funds from the Afghan Central Bank;
Deposited with US financial institutions, he said he would allocate half of it to compensation claims by the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks.
Afghanistan is suffering an economic crisis after various countries froze its assets deposited abroad and cut off aid, while the currency collapsed.
The United Nations has warned that half of the country is threatened by food shortages.
Taliban leader Hebatullah Akhundzadeh (Al Jazeera)
First Appearance
In a related context, the leader of the Taliban movement, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzadeh, who rarely participates in public events, participated in a meeting of religious and tribal figures on Friday in Kabul.
Hebatullah Akhundzadeh has not appeared in public since the Taliban movement came to power last August, and he usually lives in isolation in Kandahar (southern country).
After receiving pledges of allegiance from participants who raised their hands, Akhundzadeh congratulated attendees on the movement's victory in Afghanistan in August, which marked the end of a 20-year conflict to topple a Western-backed government with the withdrawal of US-led forces from the country.
In his speech, Akhundzadeh called on merchants to return and invest in the country, saying that foreign aid cannot build an economy and will make Afghans more dependent on foreign money.
"Praise be to God, we are an independent country now, and (foreigners) have no right to dictate orders to us, it is our system and we have our decisions," Bakhtar news agency quoted him as saying.
He said that the movement wants peace and security, and that the neighboring countries have nothing to fear.
In his speech, Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund said that we want the Islamic system of government to prevail on our lands, stressing that the movement's system of government does not contradict human rights.
In his speech, he accused the countries of the world of playing a strange role towards Afghanistan by interfering in its own affairs.
At the end of the meeting, the scholars issued a final statement, calling on the international community and the Islamic world to recognize the new government and lift sanctions on Afghanistan.
The statement added that the meeting supported the position of the Islamic Emirate not to interfere in the affairs of others, calling on the countries of the world not to interfere in the Afghan issue.
The statement stressed that ISIS is a tyrannical group that must be fought.
Since Thursday in the Afghan capital, more than 3,000 religious figures and tribal elders participated in an expanded council that lasted 3 days, under strict security measures.
international demands
For its part, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called on the Taliban movement on Friday to follow the example of some Islamic countries that protect women's rights.
Michelle Bachelet told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that women in Afghanistan face hunger, domestic violence, unemployment, restrictions on their movement and clothing, and no access to an education in a country where secondary education for 1.2 million girls has been suspended.
"Although some of these concerns date back to before the Taliban seized power in August 2021, the reforms at that time were going in the right direction; there was improvement and hope."
"However, since the Taliban took power, women and girls have witnessed the biggest and fastest setback in enjoying their rights in all areas in decades," she said.
The Taliban called for a fixed date to reopen schools for girls, and to lift restrictions on women's movement and clothing.