KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban government on Wednesday said it hoped for a “new chapter” in relations with the United States after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.
The government hopes the future Trump administration “will take realistic steps toward concrete progress in relations between the two countries and both nations will be able to open a new chapter of relations”, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a post on X.
He underscored that during former president Trump’s first term in power he presided over a peace deal with the Taliban that paved the way for the US 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 under Trump, but excluded Afghanistan’s then-ruling government.
Republicans have hammered Trump’s successor, current President Joe Biden, for the chaos during the withdrawal, which saw the deaths of 13 US service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport and the near-immediate retaking of the capital by the Taliban.
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Biden has been criticised for pushing through with the withdrawal agreed to in Doha without holding the Taliban to conditions such as a ceasefire deal between the militants and the government in Kabul.
Trump made criticism of Biden’s handling of the retreat from Afghanistan a key note of his campaign against democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Taliban government has not been recognised by any state since they swept to power off the back of an offensive surge in the months and weeks leading up to the US withdrawal.
A key sticking point to recognition has been restrictions imposed on women, including access to education and many jobs, which the United Nations has called “gender apartheid”.
“Americans are not ready to hand over the leadership of their great country to a woman,” Inamullah Samangani, head of the information and culture department in the historical Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, said in a post on X.
A former member of parliament in Kabul Fawzia Koofi congratulated Trump but criticised the US withdrawal and lack of pressure on the Taliban government regarding women’s rights.
“As a businessman, he should understand that no nation can thrive in the long term by denying half its population the right to work and receive education.”