Qatar urges talks with Taliban amid humanitarian crisis

Qatar believes that recognising the Taliban government in Afghanistan is not a priority now, and that the focus should be on engaging with the new administration and addressing humanitarian issues, a senior Qatari official has said.

Mutlaq al-Qahtani, special envoy of the Qatari foreign minister, called on Tuesday for other countries to engage more deeply with the Taliban as Afghanistan’s de facto authority, while urging the group to act as a “responsible” administration and respect the right of women to work and girls to attend school.

Al-Qahtani said the only way forward was to offer the current Taliban administration “more collaboration, cooperation and assistance” but that Afghanistan should move towards an inclusive government in an internal process whereby Afghans “decide their future”.

Qatar, which was the venue for US-Taliban and intra Afghan peace talks and played a key role in bridging the gap between the two sides, has suggested that moderate voices among the Taliban leadership must be nurtured.

This comes after Doha this week hosted the first round of talks between the Taliban, USA and EU since the Taliban stormed to power on August 15.

Qatar Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, while briefing counter-terror experts who gathered for Global Security Forum in Doha this week, stated that his country believes the international community should urge the Taliban to take the right steps and to incentivise rather than talking only of penalising them for negative steps.