Taliban talks on Afghanistan underway

OSLO, NORWAY — A Taliban delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Sunday started three days of talks in Oslo with Western officials and Afghan civil society representatives amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

The closed-door meetings are the first time since the Taliban took over in August that their representatives have held official meetings in Europe.

The talks were not without controversy, however, reigniting the debate over whether they legitimize the Taliban government, especially since they were being held in Norway, a NATO country involved in Afghanistan from 2001 until the Taliban take over last summer.

Speaking at the end of the first day of talks, Taliban delegate Shafiullah Azam said that the meetings with Western officials were “a step to legitimize (the) Afghan government,” adding that “this type of invitation and communication will help (the) European community, (the) U.S. or many other countries to erase the wrong picture of the Afghan government.”

That clashes with earlier comments by Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt, who stressed that the talks were “not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban.”

On Sunday, 200 protesters gathered in front of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry to condemn the meetings with the Taliban, which has not received diplomatic recognition from any foreign government. “The Taliban has not changed as some in the international community like to say,” said Ahman Yasir, a Norwegian Afghan living in Norway for around two decades. “They are as brutal as they were in 2001 and before.”

Starting today, Taliban representatives will meet with delegations from Western nations and will be certain to press their demand that nearly $10 billion frozen by the U.S. and other Western countries be released as Afghanistan faces a precarious humanitarian situation.