Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban authorities, said the group considers the reopening of the US embassy in Kabul, as well as the resumption of the Afghan embassy in Washington, necessary for restoring normal diplomatic relations. In an interview with an Indian media outlet, he added that policies from the war era with the United States must change and ties between the two sides should be based on mutual respect.<\/p>\n
The remarks came as Washington has previously ruled out the possibility of normalising relations with the Taliban authorities. In a written response, the US State Department accused the Taliban authorities of failing to live up to their counterterrorism commitments.<\/p>\n
Mujahid\u2019s comments follow recent remarks by Amir Khan Muttaqi, the acting foreign minister of the Taliban authorities. Muttaqi told the New York Times a few days ago that the United States could resume its diplomatic presence in Kabul and invest in major economic projects in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
The report said the Taliban authorities have intensified their diplomatic efforts in recent months to reduce their international isolation. Those efforts have grown stronger after tensions with Pakistan, including the closure of trade borders and airstrikes on Afghan territory.<\/p>\n
At the same time, disagreements between Washington and the Taliban authorities continue. According to the report, the Trump administration has taken a tougher line against the Taliban authorities, while the Taliban authorities have rejected US requests regarding the Bagram base, the handover of remaining weapons and the release of an American prisoner.<\/p>\n
Amid these tensions, investment in Afghanistan\u2019s mines has also been raised. Some American experts believe the Taliban authorities\u2019 proposal to invest in lithium, copper and iron ore reserves could be economically important for the United States, although a SIGAR report shows that the US spent nearly $1 billion on Afghanistan\u2019s mining sector between 2004 and 2021, without achieving any tangible result.<\/p>\n
SIGAR is the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which in recent years has repeatedly published reports on the use of US aid and projects in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Taliban says reopening the US embassy in Kabul and reviving ties with Washington are needed to restore normal diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20578","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\/20578","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=20578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}