Afghan leader reaffirms wish for friendly ties while seeking aid

Afghanistan will seek good relations with other countries, the acting prime minister said in an address that sought to ease concerns abroad about Taliban control while appealing for humanitarian assistance.

Mullah Hassan Akhund, in his first televised speech as the most senior leader in the country's interim administration, on Saturday said: "The Islamic Emirate wants to have good relations, economic ties and coexist with all countries."

Speaking on Radio Television of Afghanistan, Hassan Akhund added: "Afghanistan will not interfere in internal affairs of any country, it is not our policy."

He said the new administration will not allow anyone to use Afghan soil to commit acts against another country.

Responding to concerns expressed since the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in August, the acting prime minister spoke of the government's aim to protect the rights of women.

"The Islamic Emirate respects the rights of education for women and girls," Hassan Akhund said. Women will be provided with their own space for their studies based on Islamic laws, he said.

Hassan Akhund also urged the international community to restore humanitarian assistance to the war-ravaged country.

"We ask all the international charity organizations to not withhold their aid and to help our exhausted nation … so that the problems of the people can be solved," Hassan said.

Afghanistan, which has relied on foreign aid for decades, has been experiencing rising inflation and unemployment and its banking sector is struggling. Adding to the strains is that the United States has yet to unfreeze about $10 billion of assets held in its reserves on behalf of Kabul.

Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said a delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Mawlavi Amir Khan Muttaqi has been in the Qatari capital Doha since Friday for talks with US officials. The discussions were due to end on Monday.

The Taliban-led administration has repeatedly asked the US to unfreeze the Afghan assets, and to not attach political issues to humanitarian aid. Muttaqi wrote an open letter to the US Congress about the assets. The details of the letter were released on Nov 17.

"The fundamental challenge of our people is financial security and the roots of this concern lead back to the freezing of the assets of our people by the American government," he said in the letter.

A report released by the United Nations World Food Program last month said that more than half of Afghanistan's population of 22.8 million people were facing acute food insecurity. Some 3.2 million children aged under 5 are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of this year.

"The world owed its support to ensure that they (the people of Afghanistan) can live in a peaceful and stable environment after years of constant conflict," Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan told a meeting of the Apex Committee of the Afghanistan Inter-Ministerial Coordination Cell in Islamabad on Nov 22.

An official document said that Khan "ordered an immediate shipment of in-kind humanitarian assistance worth 5 billion Pakistani rupees ($28.5 million), which will comprise food commodities including 50,000 metric tons of wheat, emergency medical supplies, winter shelters, and other supplies" to Afghanistan.

Pakistan approved a reduction in tariffs and sales tax that had been applied on imports from Afghanistan, and instructed authorities to restore bus services between the city of Peshawar and Jalalabad across the border.

Pakistani Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said a corridor had been approved for supplies of food aid coming from India. "We think the people in Afghanistan should be helped in any way on humanitarian grounds," Chaudhry said.

Salman Bashir, a former foreign secretary of Pakistan and former ambassador to China, called the approval "exceptional".

"This is a major gesture, given the fact that (Pakistan's) relations with India are at the lowest ebb," he said.

Bashir said Pakistan hopes the urgency of the situation will not be lost on Western countries, which "have a moral obligation to assist the people of Afghanistan at this juncture".

Political prejudices and preferences "should not override the urgent considerations of averting famine and a grave humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan", he said.

Imtiaz Gul, executive director of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Pakistan, said his country has been "doing whatever it could to facilitate Afghanistan and its people after having hosted over 3 million refugees until 2015 and 2016".

The US-led freezing of assets and halting of international financial transactions with Afghanistan have put the economy under extreme pressure, the scholar said.