2 yıl önce

Norway willing to trade aid for human rights concessions from Taliban

Norway will press the Taliban delegation with demands including the probability of delivering humanitarian aid directly to the Afghan people and for human rights to be respected.

AP

The last day of talks between the Taliban and Western diplomats has begun in Oslo with a bilateral meeting with Norwegian government officials focused largely on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

Norway has said it will present "tangible demands" in exchange for aid during talks with the Taliban in Oslo, on the last day of the group's first visit to Europe since returning to power in Afghanistan.

The demands include the possibility of providing humanitarian aid directly to the Afghan people and for human rights to be respected, reported the Norwegian news agency (NTB) on Tuesday.

"We are going to place tangible demands that we can follow up on and see if they have been met", Norwegian state secretary Henrik Thune told NTB.

Norway will call for Afghan women's rights to be respected in particular, as women are still largely excluded from public-sector employment and most secondary schools for girls remain closed.

They were also expected to raise the plight of two women activists who went missing in Kabul last week after taking part in a demonstration.

The Taliban have denied responsibility, claiming to have modernised.

Unblocking financial aid

A spokesman for the Taliban Foreign Ministry said the delegation also held bilateral talks on Tuesday with a senior French Foreign Ministry official, Bertrand Lotholary, and EU special representative Tomas Niklasson.

They view this week's meetings – held behind closed doors in a hotel near Oslo – as a step toward international recognition and the unblocking of financial aid.

"Norway providing us this opportunity is an achievement in itself because we shared the stage with the world," Foreign Minister Muttaqi said on Monday after talks with the United States, the European Union, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Norway.

No country has yet recognised the group, and Norway has insisted the talks do "not represent a legitimisation or recognition of the Taliban".

"We cannot save lives unless all the sanctions are lifted", the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, told AFP news agency before sitting down with the Taliban.

Freezing aid is "hurting the same civilians that the NATO countries spent hundreds of billions on defending until August", he said.

SOURCE: AFP