While the European Union members and other Western countries are trying to come to solution that would allow them to increase aid to Afghans without lending credibility to the Taliban, the UN resumed transferring humanitarian supplies to some parts of the country, DW reports.
Due to the protracted drought and the coronavirus pandemic Afghanistan has been battling in 2020 on top of the constant fighting, 18 million Afghanis are already facing the threat of a humanitarian disaster and another 18 million are at risk to join them soon if conditions deteriorate further,
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Friday that the UN have resumed its bid to enable some 160 aid organizations to continue their activities by restarting its Humanitarian Air Service operations and relief organizations are holding talks with the Taliban to continue critical aid.
Operated by the World Food Program, the UN flights transfer the humanitarian aid from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad to Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan and Kandahar in the southeast of the country, but on Friday, aid supplies also arrived from the United Arab Emirates.
At the same time, the Qatari Foreign Ministry’s special envoy on counterterrorism and conflict resolution, Mutlaq bin Majed Al Qahtani, noted on Friday that Doha expects the air corridors for humanitarian aid deliveries to Afghanistan to be available in the next 24-48 hours after the Qatari experts have repaired some equipment at the Kabul airport.
Al Qahtani, the first foreign official to arrive in Kabul after the US pullout from Afghanistan, informed that their technical experts managed to restore some of the equipment at Kabul airport in the past 48 hours, including one of the radars.
Meanwhile, the EU and its Western allies has been trying to decide how best to provide aid to Afghans without recognizing the Taliban authority.
The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell stressed they will have to engage with the new government in Afghanistan In order to support the Afghan population, but that it doesn’t mean recognition of the fundamentalist group as Afghanistan’s official rulers.
Borrell also added that the provision of aid would depend on the level of access that the Taliban will give them
At the same time, German Ambassador to Afghanistan Markus Potzel and UK special representative for Afghan transition, Simon Gass met in Doha with the deputy director of the Taliban political office, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, assuring him their nations would increase their humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen informed after the meeting that the UK representative reiterated his country has already increased the humanitarian assistance and has allegedly expressed readiness to cooperate with the Taliban, while the talks with the German ambassador were focused on the economic development and humanitarian assistance as well as the rehabilitation of the Kabul Airport.
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