KABUL, Afghanistan — Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, told a senior U.N. official in Kabul that Afghanistan continues to require foreign support due to the country’s ongoing challenges, according to a statement released by the Taliban on Sunday.
Muttaqi made the comments during a meeting with Tom Fletcher, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Afghanistan.
According to the Taliban statement, Muttaqi said Afghanistan’s people should ultimately be freed from reliance on humanitarian assistance. He emphasized that aid should be aligned with the real needs of Afghans and channeled toward economic growth and strengthening domestic markets.
The Taliban also quoted Fletcher as calling for closer cooperation between the United Nations and the Taliban authorities. Fletcher reportedly expressed the U.N.’s intention to help normalize Afghanistan’s international relations and to work with Taliban officials in areas such as security, climate change, and counter-narcotics efforts.
The meeting took place as the United Nations recently granted Muttaqi a temporary travel exemption to allow him to visit Doha, Qatar, for talks scheduled Sunday.
