Boris Johnson urges Pakistan to not unilaterally recognise Taliban in Afghanistan
Boris Johnson has urged Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to not recognise the Taliban as Afghanistan’s new government without wider agreement from the international community.
Number 10 said Johnson reiterated in his phone call to Khan today that “the legitimacy of any future Taliban government will be subject to them upholding internationally agreed standards on human rights and inclusivity”.
Johnson’s comments come after Khan earlier today claimed that Afghanis had “broken the shackles of slavery”, after the Taliban re-took control of the country.
Khan’s special assistant Raoof Hasan wrote on Twitter that “the contraption that the US had pieced together for Afghanistan has crumbled like the proverbial house of cards” and labelled the Taliban’s takeover as “a virtually smooth shifting of power”.
Their comments came after thousands of locals were seen descending on Kabul Airport yesterday in a desperate bid to flee the country from the extreme Islamist group.
Releasing details of the Johnson-Khan call, Number 10 said: “The Prime Minister stressed his commitment to work with international partners to avoid a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan and the wider region.
“The Prime Minister underlined that any recognition of the new government in Afghanistan to happen on an international, not unilateral basis.
“He said that any the legitimacy of any future Taliban government will be subject to them upholding internationally agreed standards on human rights and inclusivity.”
Pakistan has been accused for decades of secretly supporting the Taliban and helping shelter them after the US invasion of Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s offensive over the past week and a half, which saw the group takeover the entire country, has reportedly been widely welcomed in the Muslim majority country.
Elizabeth Threlkeld, a former US State Department official in Pakistan, told the Financial Times: “There is a clear sense of triumphalism in Pakistan.”
The UK and other western countries have urged world leaders to not officially recognise the Taliban unilaterally, without wider international agreement.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said the UK would freely impose economic and aid-based sanctions on Afghanistan if the Taliban once again turns the country into a breeding ground for terrorists and does not “protect the most essential human rights, including respecting the rights of women”.
“There are levers and we know from the political commission of the Taliban in Doha that they’ve made a series of commitments, a series of undertakings and it’s right for the UK, critically working with our partners, that they are held to the undertakings they’ve made,” he said.
Taliban spokesmen have today said that they would allow women to work and serve in government under their new regime.
However, there have already been reports of girls as young as 12 being taken into sex slavery by the extremist Islamist group and of women being prevented from going to university classes.
Women were forced to wear a Burqa and not allowed to work or get an education under the Taliban’s previous regime.
Afghanistan under the Taliban also became a training ground for terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks.