Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters: “The news coming from Panjshir is truly worrying. The assault is strongly condemned.”
As the Taliban claimed they had taken control of the Panjshir Valley, Iran on Monday strongly” condemned the Islamist group’s military offensive against holdout fighters.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters: “The news coming from Panjshir is truly worrying. The assault is strongly condemned.”
Being the region’s dominant Muslim Shiite power, Iran had until now refrained from criticising the Taliban since the Sunni group seized Kabul on August 15.
Taliban on Monday claimed a victory in Panjshir valley with their spokesperson declaring “our country is completely taken out of the quagmire of war”, three weeks after the terrorists captured the capital.
However, the National Resistance Front (NRF) made up of anti-Taliban fighters and members of Afghan security forces, and led by former Vice President Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud, said its fighters were still present in “strategic positions” across the valley, and that they were continuing the struggle.
Khatibzadeh further said: “On the question of Panjshir, I have insisted on the fact that it be resolved by dialogue in the presence of all the Afghan elders.”
“The Taliban must equally respect their obligations in terms of international law, and their commitments,” he added, affirming that “Iran will work to put an end to all the suffering of the Afghan people in favour of establishing a representative government for all Afghans”.
The Iran foreign ministry spokesman, alluding to Pakistan, condemned “all foreign interference” in Afghan affairs.
“We would like to inform our friends, and those who might make the strategic error of entering Afghanistan with different intentions, that Afghanistan is not a country which accepts the enemy (or) the aggressor” on its soil, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said.
Iran, during the earlier Taliban stint in the country between 1996-2001, had not recognised the government of the Islamist hardliners. Iran, notably, shares a 900 kilometre border with Afghanistan.
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