Taliban leader: Afghanistan will deal with the international community in accordance with the provisions of Sharia

The leader of the Taliban movement, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzadeh, said that the movement will deal with the international community in accordance with the provisions of Islamic law, according to a copy of his speech published by the Afghan Ministry of Information today, Friday.

No country has yet recognized the government formed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the movement is facing difficulties in dealing with a severe economic crisis due to the strict implementation of international sanctions and the cutting off of development aid.

Several governments, including Washington, have pressured the Taliban to ease what it describes as restrictions on women and open high schools for girls.

The official Bakhtar news agency reported that about 3,000 tribal sheikhs, officials and clerics gathered in the southern city of Kandahar - the headquarters of Akhundzada - yesterday, Thursday, in the second gathering of its kind since the movement took power about a year ago.

"We called for this meeting to reflect on the freedom that we obtained with the grace of God and achieved with the blood of our mujahideen," Akhundzadeh said in his speech. "We will deal with the international community in accordance with Islamic law... We will not deal with any other country if Sharia does not allow this."

There are ongoing talks with US diplomats, especially regarding how to revive the country's banking sector, and the possible release of the central bank's frozen assets abroad, but officials noted that achieving progress still faces many obstacles.

Tensions increased last month, when the United States carried out a drone strike in the center of the capital, Kabul, in which it killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, accusing the Taliban of violating an agreement between them not to harbor him.

The official Bachter Agency reported that Thursday’s meeting came out with several decisions, including a decision condemning the American strike and another as considering any neighboring country that allowed the use of its airspace to carry out the strike as complicit with it.