Kabul: The Afghan Taliban government said on Wednesday that it hopes to open a “new chapter” in relations with the United States after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a post on the X website that the government hopes that the future Trump administration will take “realistic steps towards tangible progress in relations between the two countries and that the two countries will be able to open a new chapter in relations.”
He stressed that during former President Trump’s first term in power, he supervised a peace agreement with the Taliban that paved the way for the American withdrawal in 2021, “after which the 20-year occupation ended.”
The Doha Agreement was signed on February 29, 2020 in the Gulf state of Qatar between the Taliban and the United States during the Trump era, but it excluded the ruling Afghan government at the time.
Republicans have criticized Trump’s successor, current President Joe Biden, over the chaos of the withdrawal, which saw 13 US service members killed in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport and the Taliban reclaim the capital almost immediately.
Biden was criticized for proceeding with the withdrawal agreed upon in Doha without binding the Taliban to conditions such as a ceasefire agreement between the militants and the government in Kabul.
Trump made criticism of Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan a major point in his campaign against Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.
No country has recognized the Taliban government since it came to power against the backdrop of an offensive escalation in the months and weeks preceding the US withdrawal.
A major point of contention over recognition has been the restrictions imposed on women, including access to education and many jobs, which the United Nations has called “gender apartheid.”
“The Americans are not ready to hand over the leadership of their great country to a woman,” Inamullah Samangani, head of the media and culture department in Kandahar, a historic Taliban stronghold, said in a post on the X website.
The former member of parliament in Kabul, Fawzia Koofi, congratulated Trump but criticized the American withdrawal and the lack of pressure on the Taliban government regarding women’s rights.
He added: “As a businessman, he must understand that no country can prosper in the long term by depriving half of its population of the right to work and access to education.”