Acceptance: The Taliban has postponed the formation of a new government in Afghanistan to next week, the insurgent group’s spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said on Saturday.
“The announcement regarding the new government and cabinet members will now be made next week,” the spokesperson said without giving further details.
It comes as the Taliban were expected to announce the formation of a new government in Afghanistan on Saturday.
The Taliban has delayed the formation of a new government in Kabul for the second time since taking over the country in mid-August.
Khalil Haqqani, a member of a committee set up by the insurgent group to hold talks with various groups on government formation, said the Taliban’s bid to form a broad-based government in Kabul that is acceptable to the world was actually causing delays. Is.
Acknowledging that “the Taliban alone would not be acceptable to the world”, he said: “The Taliban can form their own government, but they are now focusing on an administration in which all parties, groups and sections of society are represented. Have fair representation.”
Haqqani said that former Afghan prime minister and Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and brother of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who has declared his support to the Taliban, will be given representation in the Taliban government, PTI reported.
He said the Taliban is in the process of holding talks with other stakeholders to seek their support for their government.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the diplomatic face of the Taliban, is likely to lead the Afghan government, according to reports.
Earlier on Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US and the international community will join forces with representatives of different communities from the Taliban in Afghanistan to form an inclusive government and to combat terrorism, respect the rights of women and minorities and do not participate in it. as expected to fulfill its commitments. in retaliation.
“The hope is to see inclusivity in the government, but ultimately the hope is to see a government that fulfills the commitments made by the Taliban, in particular freedom of travel, to Afghanistan as a launching ground for terrorism.” The US or any ally and ally, upholding the basic rights of the Afghan people, including women and minorities, and not engaging in retaliation,” he said.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Friday that the Taliban have taken a number of initiatives, “some of them positive at the level of words” but that there was a need to examine whether they translated into deeds.
In New Delhi, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that India’s immediate focus in Afghanistan is to ensure that Afghan soil is not used for terrorist activities against it.
Bagchi said it was still “very early days” to talk about any possible recognition of the Taliban.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi earlier this week urged the international community not to repeat the “mistake” of abandoning the people of Afghanistan and warned that not engaging with the Taliban would give space to international terrorist organizations.
He said that after the withdrawal of America from Afghanistan after 20 years, the international community has options to join or isolate the Taliban.
“The international community will have to weigh its options,” Qureshi said in an interview with Britain’s Sky News that aired on Wednesday, Dawn reported.
He recalled that the world had made the same “mistake” in the 1990s and said isolating Afghanistan would be a “dangerous choice”.
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