ISLAMABAD, July 30 (Alliance News): US Secretary of State Anthony Blanken has named Pakistan as one of the partners with whom the US is working to allow the Taliban to allow girls to go back to school.
According to a report, Antony Blanken launched the US-Afghan Consultative Mechanism (USACM), which will allow Afghan citizens to communicate directly with US policymakers.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the top US diplomat said that apart from Pakistan, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Qatar and Turkey, among others, supported US efforts to persuade the Taliban to reverse its decision to keep Afghan girls out of school. have been.
The new platform USACM launched Thursday in Washington will bring together Afghan women, journalists and vulnerable ethnic and religious communities with representatives from the US State Department.
It will facilitate regular communication with the US government on the issue of women’s rights in Islam.
“With the launch of USACM we are taking that relationship to the next level, so I’m very happy today,” said Antony Blanken.
She identified the group’s priorities, supporting income-generating activities for Afghan women, developing strategies to assist Afghan human rights monitors to securely document abuses, and New ways to promote religious freedom are to be devised.
The U.S. State Department confirmed that the U.S. has held talks with Taliban officials about the possible release of Afghan central bank assets that were frozen after the fall of Kabul in August last year.
An official statement issued in Washington said that the two sides discussed ongoing efforts to use the Afghan Central Bank’s $3.5 billion reserves for the benefit of the Afghan people.
The statement added that “the United States expressed the need to address the urgent humanitarian situation in Afghanistan” and “also emphasized the need to accelerate these efforts.”
The meeting, which was attended by Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West and Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson, took place in Tashkent on Wednesday.
The meetings followed the conclusion of the Tashkent Conference on Afghanistan hosted by Uzbekistan on July 26.
Media reports about the meeting claimed that there had been “some progress” in the talks and that US and Taliban officials had exchanged proposals for unfreezing assets, although some differences remained unresolved.
One of the main differences was over the Taliban’s refusal to replace the bank’s top political appointees.