Peshawar: The Taliban has postponed the formation of a new government in Afghanistan until next week. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid gave this information on Saturday. The Taliban is fighting to form a government that is inclusive and acceptable to the international community.
The Taliban were expected to announce the formation of a new government in Kabul on Saturday, which could be headed by its co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The Taliban has postponed the announcement of the formation of a new government in Kabul for the second time since the capture of Kabul on August 15. “The announcement about the new government and cabinet members will now be made next week,” Mujahid said.
Khalil Haqqani, a member of a committee set up by the Taliban to negotiate government formation with various groups, said the delay was due to the Taliban’s promise to form an inclusive government acceptable to the world in Kabul. “The Taliban may have formed their own government, but now they are focused on creating an administration in which all parties, groups, and sections of society are properly represented,” he said.
He said Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, former prime minister of Afghanistan and head of Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan, and brother of former president Ashraf Ghani, who supported the Taliban, would be given representation in the Taliban government. He said the Taliban was in talks with other stakeholders to seek their support for government formation. Earlier, sources said Baradar, the chairman of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar, is likely to head the Taliban government in Kabul.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that his country and the international community expect the Taliban to form an inclusive government in Afghanistan. “We and countries around the world have said that it is expected that the new government should be truly inclusive and have non-Talibanians who represent different communities and different interests in Afghanistan,” Blinken told a news conference in Washington. “
Britain’s Foreign Minister Dominic Robb said on Friday that the Taliban have made many promises, “some of them verbally positive” but they need to be judged for their work. He was on a tour of Pakistan on Friday. In New Delhi, Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said that India’s focus at the moment is to ensure that Afghan soil is not used for terrorist activities against it and talk about the possibility of recognizing the Taliban. Now it will be “haste”.
Earlier this week, Indian envoy to Qatar Deepak Mittal held talks with a senior Taliban leader in Doha. Bagchi said, “We have taken this opportunity to express our concerns. Whether it is about getting people out (from Afghanistan) or on the issue of terrorism. We got a positive response.”
