Talks with Taliban begin in Norway
OSLO, Norway — A Taliban delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi began three days of talks in Oslo on Sunday with Western government officials and Afghan civil society representatives amid the deteriorating situation humanitarian aid in Afghanistan. The closed-door meetings take place at a hotel in the snow-capped mountains above the Norwegian capital .
On the first day, Taliban representatives will meet with women’s rights activists and human rights defenders from Afghanistan and the Afghan diaspora. Ahead of the talks, the Taliban deputy culture and information minister tweeted a voicemail message saying it was from Muttaqi, expressing hope for a “good journey full of results” and thanking Norway, a country which he hopes can become “a gateway to a positive relationship with Europe.
The trip is the first time since the Taliban took control of the country in August that their representatives have held official meetings in Europe. Previously, they visited Russia, Iran, Qatar, Pakistan, China and Turkmenistan During the talks, Muttaqi will insist on the demand of the Taliban to release nearly 10 billion frozen dollars from the United States and other Western countries so that Afghanistan faces a precarious humanitarian situation.
The UN managed to provide some cash and allowed the new administration to pay for imports, including electricity, but warned that f up to 1 million Afghan children are at risk of starvation and most of the country’s 38 million people live below the poverty line.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry stated the Taliban delegation could additionally meet with Afghans in Norway, inclusive of “ladies leaders, reporters and those who paintings with, amongst different things, human rights and humanitarian, financial, social and political issues.”
“Norway maintains to interact in communicate with the Taliban to sell human rights, ladies’s participation in society, and to bolster humanitarian and financial efforts in Afghanistan in guide of the Afghan people,” the Foreign Ministry stated in a assertion.
A U.S. delegation, led with the aid of using Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West, plans to discuss “the formation of a consultant political system; responses to the pressing humanitarian and financial crises; protection and counterterrorism concerns; and human rights, specially schooling for women and ladies,” in line with a assertion launched with the aid of using the U.S. State Department .
On Friday, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt careworn that the go to was “now no longer a legitimation or popularity of the Taliban. But we need to communicate to folks who in exercise govern the u . s . a . today.”
”We are extraordinarily involved approximately the extreme scenario in Afghanistan,” Huitfeldt stated, noting that financial and political situations have created “a full-scale humanitarian disaster for tens of thousands and thousands of people” going through hunger withinside the u . s . a ..
The Scandinavian USA , domestic to the Nobel Peace Prize, isn’t anyt any stranger to touchy international relations and has withinside the beyond been worried in peace efforts in some of countries, inclusive of Mozambique, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Colombia, the Philippines, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Syria, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka and South Sudan.