Islamabad, Pakistan
Reuters
As international donors gather in Geneva on Monday to discuss humanitarian relief for Afghanistan under Taliban rule, neighbours China and Pakistan have already reached out with aid and discussions of future assistance.
The economy in the war-torn country is in crisis and a humanitarian crisis is looming, experts say.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, political chief of Afghanistan’s Taliban, in Tianjin, China, on 28th July. PICTURE: Li Ran/Xinhua via Reuters.
Yet the United States and other Western nations are reluctant to provide the Taliban with funds until the Islamist militant movement provides assurances that it will uphold human rights, and in particular the rights of women.
The country’s roughly $US10 billion in foreign assets, held overseas, are also frozen.
TALIBAN LATEST: WOMEN CAN STUDY AT UNIVERSITY BUT CLASSES MUST BE SEGREGATED
Women in Afghanistan will be allowed to study in universities as the country seeks to rebuild after decades of war but gender-segregation and Islamic dress code will be mandatory, the Taliban’s new Higher Education minister said on Sunday.
The minister, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, said the new Taliban government, named last week, would “start building the country on what exists today” and did not want to turn the clock back 20 years to when the movement was last in power.
He said female students would be taught by women wherever possible and classrooms would remain separated, in accordance with the movement’s interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
“Thanks to God we have a high number of women teachers. We will not face any problems in this. All efforts will be made to find and provide women teachers for female students,” he told a news conference in Kabul.
The issue of women’s education has been one of the central questions facing the Taliban as they seek to persuade the world that they have changed since the harsh fundamentalist rule they imposed in the 1990s when women were largely banned from studying or working outside the home.
Taliban officials have said women will be able to study and work in accordance with sharia law and local cultural traditions but strict dress rules will apply. Haqqani said hijab religious veils would be mandatory for all female students but did not specify if this meant headscarves or compulsory face coverings.
On Saturday, a group, apparently made up of women students in black robes that covered them completely from head to foot, demonstrated in Kabul in support of the rules on dress and separate classrooms.
Haqqani said where no women teachers were available special measures would be adopted to ensure separation.
“When there is really a need, men can also teach [women] but in accordance with sharia, they should observe the veil,” he said. Classrooms would be curtained off to divide male and female students where necessary and teaching could also be done through streaming or closed circuit TV.
Classrooms divided by curtains have already been seen in many places since the Western-backed government collapse and the Taliban seized Kabul last month.
Haqqani told reporters that gender segregation would be enforced across Afghanistan and all subjects taught at colleges would also be reviewed in the coming months.
– Reuters
“The understandable purpose is to deny these funds to the de facto Taliban administration,” Deborah Lyons, the UN Secretary General’s special representative for Afghanistan, told the UN Security Council last week.
“The inevitable effect, however, will be a severe economic downturn that could throw many more millions into poverty and hunger, may generate a massive wave of refugees from Afghanistan, and indeed set Afghanistan back for generations.”
Another possible effect could be to drive Afghanistan closer to its neighbours and close allies Pakistan and China, who have already sent planeloads of supplies to Afghanistan. They have also signalled they are open to ramped-up engagement.
China announced last week it would send $US31 million worth of food and health supplies to Afghanistan, among the first foreign aid pledges since the Taliban took power last month.
Pakistan last week sent supplies such as cooking oil and medicine to authorities in Kabul, while the country’s foreign minister called on the international community to provide assistance without conditions and to unfreeze Afghanistan’s assets.
Minerals and militancy
Pakistan has had deep ties with the Taliban and has been accused of supporting the group as it battled the US-backed government in Kabul for 20 years – charges denied by Islamabad.
China, with a strong alliance with Pakistan, has also been engaging with the Taliban. Some analysts said it was enticed by the country’s mineral wealth, including large reserves of lithium, a key component for electric vehicles.
China has also expressed concern about militancy that could spill over from Afghanistan across its border, which it wants the Taliban administration to help contain.
Beyond humanitarian aid, some experts and officials in the region say China’s huge Belt and Road Initiative could provide Afghanistan with long-term economic viability.
One possibility is Afghanistan joining the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a central part of the BRI, under which Beijing has pledged over $US60 billion for infrastructure projects in Pakistan, much of it in the form of loans.
“The Taliban would welcome joining CPEC, China would also be very happy,” said Rustam Shah Mohmand, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Afghanistan.
China has not made any comment on the BRI but Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said Beijing is ready to actively discuss the resumption of China-Afghanistan freight trains and facilitate Afghanistan’s interaction with the outside world, especially its access to humanitarian supplies.
Pakistan’s foreign office and a Taliban spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Labourers unload boxes of pomegranates from Afghanistan, from a truck at the ‘Friendship Gate’ crossing point, in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan, on 7th September. PICTURE: Reuters/Saeed Ali Achakzai/File photo.
Taliban, China talk – source
Taliban leaders in recent weeks have said they want good relations with China.
A senior Taliban source said discussions have taken place with China in Doha about possible investment opportunities. China is interested in mining in particular but any activity in the sector will be open to tender, the source said.
“The Taliban welcomes foreign investment that will benefit the country,” he said.
Two sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan familiar with the matter said China had been proactively encouraging Afghanistan to join CPEC for years but had been met with a non-committal response from the previous US-backed government.
The Taliban, with a need for economic stimulus and international recognition, seems more keen.
“The best way forward and the immediately available alternative option for Afghanistan’s economic development is CPEC, which includes Pakistan and China,” said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a Pakistani senator and former chairman of the China-Pakistan Institute.
“The new administration in Kabul would also be receptive to this and they are keen on it.”
For China, though, which already has mining interests in Afghanistan that have struggled to get off the ground, any further investment would come with risks attached, given the uncertain security situation in the country.
“Absolutely the security and stability of Afghanistan is also of importance to China,” said Wang Huiyao, president of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a thinktank.
“But also links to Central Asia and the connectivity through the Belt and Road, it’s all related for the regional stability and prosperity…There’s a stake there for China.”
– Additional reporting by ALASDAIR PAL and GABRIEL CROSSLEY.
