Afghan FM Meets Women Journalists After Gender Bias Row

This is the first visit of a senior Taliban minister to India after the radical group seized power in Afghanistan four years ago. However, the Taliban FM’s much hyped ongoing six-day visit to India got overshadowed by “exclusion of women” controversy. Apart from women journalists, several Opposition leaders criticised the Narendra Modi government for allowing the Taliban's regressive gender discrimination policy on Indian soil. The Indian government said it had no role to play in this incident.

For Sunday’s press meet, Muttaqi had to cancel his scheduled trip to Agra to correct the “historical blunder” that his team had made on the Indian soil.

"The press conference was organised on short notice. A small list of journalists was finalised. It was more of a technical issue. Our colleagues had decided to send invitations to specific journalists and there was no other intention," Muttaqi said. He added that no one's rights should be violated -- be it men or women. “Kisi ka haq zaya nahi ho sakta, chahe mard ho ya aurat,” he said when questioned on women’s rights in Afghanistan.

He also expressed regret over the killings of journalists in Afghanistan by Taliban fighters, including Indian photo journalist Danish Siddiqui who was brutally killed by the Taliban in 2021. “The four decades of war was a bitter period of our history. We regret all the losses in the last few years. In the last four years since we have taken over no reporters have been harmed,” Muttaqi said.

Sitting in the front row, the women journalists questioned Muttaqi over gender discrimination and the poor condition of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. Some of the questions he weakly defended and others he easily deflected.

Returning to the talking points of his visit to India and the meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar on Friday, Muttaqi informed that the new Afghanistan regime under Taliban will shortly reopen its embassy in New Delhi full-fledged as relations with India are improving “with each day”.

The staff of Afghanistan embassy had on Friday resisted putting the Talibani black and white flag with “Shahada” during the press meet insisting that only the United Nations accepted flag of the country can be displayed. However, a lot transpired in the last two days as on Sunday the Talibani regime firmly set up its Islamic flag for the press meet without resistance from the embassy staff. The embassy's main flagpole, however, still features the Afghan Republic's flag.

It is learnt that after Friday’s incident the embassy staff was intimidated by the Taliban and were threatened with regard to their families back in Kabul which forced them to back off this time.

“This is our flag. This is 100 per cent our embassy. All those working here are with us," Muttaqi said.

And since Muttaqi made it clear that the present government is the custodian of the embassy in India and across the world, the six Afghan staffers who all along held the fort firmly in Delhi now fear termination and deportation followed by harassment back home. The only female Afghan staffer in the embassy was not present during the press meet on Sunday.

With regard to his visit to India, Muttaqi said among other things he is also here to seek investment from Indian companies for Afghanistan. In this regard Afghanistan is ready to open the mining sector including that of rare earth minerals that the United States of America President has been eyeing. Taliban sources added that India has a lot of goodwill in Afghanistan and the new government wants to collaborate in various sectors.

“Mining, roads, energy, transport, water resources, healthcare, are the major areas we want Indian investment. We want top Indian hospitals to collaborate with Afghan hospitals in critical care and help improve our health setup,” said an official of the Taliban government. Already an agreement has been made to improve air connectivity between New Delhi, Mumbai to Kabul and Kandahar. He said with India they have discussed ways to make effective use of Chabahar Port keeping in mid the US sanctions.

On a question by this reporter if the Taliban will allow the US to retake control of Bagram air base, the answer was a firm negative. “There is no chance of any base of the US and Nato forces or any other country. It has taken us years to take back our country from them, we cannot allow them again,” he said.