Taliban, Western officials meet in Oslo to discuss Afghanistan

Taliban and Western diplomats held a meeting outside the capital of Norway Oslo for talks focused on the Afghan humanitarian crisis, which has increased dramatically since last August when the Taliban invaded back to 20 years after being overthrown in the invasion led by the US.

Discussion was closed with representatives of the United States, France, England, Germany, Italy, the European Union and Norway were detained on Monday at Soria Moria Hotel, on a snowy hill outside Oslo.

On Sunday, on the first day of three-day talks, the Taliban met with members of the Afghan civil society, including female activists and journalists, for talks about human rights.

The activist of Jamila Afghani’s women’s rights, who attended Sunday talk, told the AFP news agency “it was a positive beating meeting”.

Taliban “shown goodwill … let’s see what their actions are, based on their words,” he said.

15 Delegation members All men arrived on Saturday on a plane rented by the Norwegian government.

The Taliban has demanded that the assets nearly $ 10 billion held by US released and Afghanistan related to global trade.

International assistance was stopped after the return of Taliban to rule on August 15, the worsening fate of millions of people had suffered hunger after severe drought.

The freezing of the assets of the Afghan central bank is worth billions of dollars by the US and the suspension of funds by international financial institutions has triggered the banking crisis and caused the collapse of the Afghan economy.

We asked them to remove Afghan assets and did not punish ordinary Afghans because of political discourse, “Taliban delegation Shafiullah Azam told the associated press news agency, spoke at the end of the first day of the conversation.

“Because of hunger, because the deadly winter, I think it’s time for the international community to support Afghanistan, not punishing them because of their political disputes.”

He also said the meeting with Western officials was “steps to legitimize (The) Afghanistan government”, added that “this type of invitation and communication will help (The) European community, (The) US or many other countries to remove the wrong description of the Afghan government “.

However, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt previously emphasized that the talks were “not legitimacy or recognition of the Taliban”.

US delegation, led by representatives specifically for Afghanistan Tom West, plans to discuss “the formation of a representative political system; responses to urgent humanitarian and economic crises; security and counterterrorism; and human rights, especially education for girls and women”, According to a statement released by the US State Department.

Middle school girls have been confined in their homes because school has not been opened. Last week, the Taliban promised all girls would be able to return to school at the end of March.

However, the Taliban had stopped forcing Burqa’s ban, which was obliged when they previously ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The Taliban has been accused of targeting groups of rights and journalists, in many cases of holding them.