US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said that the United States and the international community expects the Taliban to form an inclusive government in Afghanistan with representations from different communities and interests.
The Taliban is expected to announce the formation of the new government on September 4 after the takeover of the country on August 15.
“As we’ve said and as countries around the world have said, there is an expectation that any government that emerges now will have some real inclusivity, and that it will have non-Talibs in it who are representative of different communities and different interests in Afghanistan,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference, according to PTI inputs.
“We will see what, in fact, emerges, but I have to tell you that as important as what the government looks like is, more important still is what any government does. And that’s what we’re really looking at. We’re looking at what actions, what policies any new Afghan government pursues. That’s what matters the most,” he said.
Blinken opined that although the expectation is to see inclusivity in government, ultimately the government will need to make good on commitments that the Taliban have made, particularly in freedom of travel, not allowing Afghanistan to be used as a launching ground for terrorism directed at the US or any of the allies and partners, upholding the basic rights of the Afghan people, including women and minorities, and not engaging in reprisals.
Meanwhile, Blinken also stressed the fact that the United States is ready to look back on the lessons learned from the Afghan war since day one.
“I think that there also needs to be, including across the State Department, a look back at the entire 20 years to understand the entire course of this war and engagement with Afghanistan and to ask the right questions and to learn the right lessons from that,” he added.