Jaafar Mahdavi, a figure close to the Taliban administration, dismissed discussions about separatism and renaming Afghanistan, calling these views detached from the country’s realities. In a message posted on the social media platform X, Mahdavi criticized some educated individuals for failing to grasp Afghanistan’s core issues and remaining trapped in outdated ethnic and separatist narratives. He noted that various groups are attempting to construct “imaginary palaces” through names and geographies such as “Khorasan,” “Hazaraistan,” or “Southern Turkestan,” which he considers merely mental illusions.<\/p>\n
Referring to ethnic tensions on social media, Mahdavi highlighted that insults and accusations directed at different Afghan ethnic groups show that the problems facing non-Pashtun communities, including Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks, cannot be resolved through separatism or changing the country’s name. He added that the “dream of Pashtunistanism” in the past has only brought crisis, rebellion, coups, collapse, and devastation to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Mahdavi urged citizens to seek solutions within the framework of the existing Afghan state and to emphasize “brotherhood” among all ethnic groups instead of ethnic mindsets. These remarks come amid increased criticism since the Taliban’s return to power regarding the lack of fair ethnic representation in the power structure and political restrictions. Many experts believe that addressing these issues practically and fairly could prevent the escalation of divisive discourses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jaafar Mahdavi, close to the Taliban, rejects calls to rename Afghanistan amid ethnic tensions, urging unity and brotherhood among all groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}