Afghan interior minister rebuttals reports of threatening US if not recognise their government
By Mashal Afghan
KABUL (TSAT) - The Afghanistan Interior Ministry has rebutted the reports that the acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani issued threats to the United States if Washington not recognised the new Taliban government in Kabul.
In a statement, issued from the Afghan ministry, said few days ago Haqqani had an interview with Qatar based Al-Jazeera but some media outlets based on that interview published false report of Haqqani threaten to the US.
“The acting Interior Minister has not used any words against the United States, neither he threatening them,” said in the statement.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is fully committed to the Doha Agreement, that Afghan soil will not be used against anyone. We expect the media to be committed to true journalism,” its said.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, is also deputy chief of the Afghan Taliban and leader of Haqqani Network, the US had included him in most wanted person and still have $10 million bounty on his head.
He is considering the most powerful man inside the Taliban because of leading thousand strong force under his network.
Taliban meetings in Norwary
Meanwhile, Anas Haqqani, a younger brother of the acting Interior Minister, who is also his adviser, has called their recent meetings in Oslo, Norway “very important” and way forward with western world.
“Norway's trip was an important step in connecting the world and was very successful” he said in a video statement.
“ We met with a number of foreign delegates and Afghans including US, France, Germany, Norway and other European countries representatives and assured them that Taliban government want good relations with all countries.”
He added that the results of these meetings would be felt in the near future.
According to Haqqani, their Finance Ministry and Banks officials also met with US Finance department officials and discussed the issue of Afghan frozen assets.
However, he didn’t shared more details about that meeting.
In August last year after Taliban took over the country capital Kabul, Washington frozen its $10 billion assets that pushed the war-torn country into economic crisis.
Several countries including China, Russia, Pakistan and Qatar urged the US to release Afghanistan’s funds as the country facing worst humanitarian crisis, however so far Washington unresponsive.
