How did the international community react to the Taliban cabinet?
The cabinet of Afghanistan’s new government has provoked a lot of reactions around the world, with some expressing concern and some calling for cooperation with the new government.
The members of the Taliban cabinet have not been very pleasant for some countries and have provoked a negative reaction from some Western countries.
United States of America
According to Al-Jazeera, the United States has expressed concern about the “affiliations and backgrounds” of some of the individuals the Taliban have appointed as officials in Afghanistan’s new government.
A State Department spokesman said: “We see that the list of names announced is exclusively for people who are members of the Taliban or their relatives and there are no women in it. “We are also concerned about the affiliations and backgrounds of some of the people on the list.”
“We understand that the Taliban have presented this list as an interim cabinet, but we will judge the Taliban based on their actions and not on what they do,” he said.
Turkey
Reacting to the new Afghan cabinet, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was closely monitoring developments in Afghanistan.
“We do not know how long this interim cabinet will be in office,” he told reporters during an official visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “All we have to do is follow this process carefully.”
Qatar
A senior Qatari official told AFP in an exclusive interview that the Taliban had shown “pragmatism” and should be judged on its actions, and that there was no doubt that the group was Afghanistan’s main ruler.
“They showed a great deal of pragmatism,” said Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Lulu al-Khater. Let’s seize the opportunity … and take a look at their public actions. “In practice, they rule, there is no doubt about it.”
China
According to Al Jazeera, Beijing welcomed the end of “three weeks of disorder” in Afghanistan with the formation of a new interim government in Kabul and called on the Taliban to restore order in Afghanistan.
“China attaches great importance to the Taliban’s declaration of an interim government,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a news conference. “This has put an end to more than three weeks of unrest in Afghanistan and is a necessary step in restoring order and reconstruction.”
European Union
The European Union (EU) has not reacted positively to Afghanistan’s new cabinet, with a spokesman for the EU saying the Taliban’s interim government in Afghanistan was in fact a sign of the Taliban’s disregard for its promises to include various factions in the new cabinet.
An EU spokesman said: “Preliminary analysis of the announced names shows that this combination is comprehensive and inclusive in terms of ethnic and religious diversity that we hoped to see in Afghanistan and that the Taliban had promised in recent weeks. “It was not.”
United Nations
Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman, stated that the international body was not involved in recognizing governments.
“This is something that is being done by member states, not us,” he told reporters. “In our view of today’s declaration, only a comprehensive negotiated solution can bring lasting peace to Afghanistan.”
The United Nations is committed to “assisting in a peaceful solution, promoting the human rights of all Afghans, especially women and girls, and providing humanitarian and rescue assistance,” he said.
Reacting to the absence of women in the Taliban’s caretaker cabinet, UNICEF chief Pamela Patton said the Taliban had failed to deliver on its promises to protect and respect the rights of women and girls.
He called women’s political participation a “basic precondition for gender equality and real democracy” and said that “the Taliban leadership has sent a wrong signal about the stated goal of creating an inclusive, strong and prosperous society by removing women from the government.”
“In the next government, we will try to employ people from different ethnic groups, and we will try to involve all sections of Afghan society in the next government,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said after the announcement of Afghanistan’s new cabinet.
