Taliban to announce new govt in 3 days
The Taliban are all set to announce the formation of a new government in Kabul on the lines of the Iranian leadership, with the group’s top religious leader Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzada as Afghanistan’s supreme authority, a senior member of the group has said.
“Consultations are almost finalised on the new government, and the necessary discussions have also been held about the cabinet,” Mufti Inamullah Samangani, a senior official in the Taliban’s information and culture commission, said on Wednesday.
He said the group is all set to announce the formation of the new government in Kabul in the next three days. In the new setup, 60-year-old Mullah Akhundzada will be the Supreme Leader of the Taliban government, which will follow the pattern of the Iranian leadership. Samangani said that under the new governmental set-up, governors will control the provinces, while the district governors will be incharge of their respective districts. The Taliban has already appointed governors, police chiefs and police commanders for provinces and districts. Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, deputy leader of the Taliban political office in Doha, told media channels that women and members from all tribes in Afghanistan will be part of the new set-up.
There is no rush to recognise the Taliban either by the United States or any of the countries that it has spoken to, the White House said asserting that such a move would be dependent on what they deliver on the expectations of the global community.
“There’s no rush to recognition from the United States or any country we have spoken with around the world. It will be very dependent on their behaviour and whether they deliver on what the expectations are of the global community,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.
At a separate news conference, the State Department echoed the same view. “We will continue to have conversations that serve our interests, as well as our allies and partners,” Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria J Nuland told reporters.
“But the first thing we want is to see them live up to the obligations that they have under the UN Charter, as well as the public statements that they themselves have made about their expectation for an Afghanistan that respects human rights, respects international law, allows international citizens and Afghans who wish to leave,” she said in response to a question.
The US obviously had contacts with the Taliban during the withdrawal, she said.
“We had it during the effort that we were trying to midwife a negotiation. Those conversations have continued intensively to enable the evacuation of -- that we undertook, and to try to get the kinds of guarantees of safe passage, etc., and tolerance, and to talk about the standard set in the UN Security Council resolution to talk about the terrorist threat as well because the expectation is that they claim to be able to control the security of Afghanistan,” Nuland said.
The US, she said, stands by the latest UN Security Council resolution. “Those are the international community’s expectations and the UNSC’s expectations for a Taliban-led government, and the way it will govern, and the way it will interact with the international system,” she said.