AFP Amer Al-Halabi
Archive photo
Today, Sunday, representatives of 57 Islamic countries will hold an extraordinary meeting devoted to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, which also constitutes a diplomatic test for the leaders of the “Taliban”.
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The administrative center of Islamabad will be completely closed Sunday to the public, surrounded by barbed wire and barriers.
It is expected that the one-day summit will end with promises of aid.
This meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is the first major conference on Afghanistan since the fall of the previous US-backed government in August.
The foreign minister in the “Taliban” government, Amir Khan Muttaki, will be among the representatives of the countries who will attend the Pakistani parliament, along with representatives of the United States, China, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. Pakistani authorities say that the meeting will be held with the participation of seventy delegations.
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No country has yet recognized the “Taliban” government, which took power in mid-August. The diplomats will have the delicate task of helping the Afghan economy, without supporting the Islamic regime.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the meeting would speak “in the name of the Afghan people” and not on behalf of a “certain group” of the population.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the only three countries that recognized the former Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001.
Qureshi told reporters that “there is a difference between recognizing” the new regime in Kabul and “dealing with it.” “We have to encourage them, through persuasion and incentive measures, to move in the right direction,” he told reporters before the summit.
Earlier, the Supreme Council of National Resistance in Afghanistan called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation not to recognize the interim government formed by the “Taliban” movement in the country.
Source: AFP
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