KABUL: Officials in neighboring Iran are acting as mouthpieces for theTaliban, a spokesman for Afghanistan said Thursday.
“Officials in Iran’s Foreign Ministry are playing the role of the Taliban’sspokespersons,” Shah Hussain Murtazawi, a deputy to the presidentialspokesperson of Afghanistan, wrote on Twitter in the wake of Iran’sofficial contacts with the Taliban.
He also said that the restoration of democracy and civil rights inAfghanistan lies behind Iran’s unease and its rising interest in developingrelations with the Taliban. “There is no media freedom” in Iran, he added.
Criticizing the Iranian regime, Murtazawi said:
“You need approval from Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati [chairman of Iran’sGuardian Council] to participate in elections.”
“Religious and ethnic minorities are under enormous pressure. Iran isworried that the freedoms in Afghanistan will set an example and thereforedefend the Taliban’s arguments.”
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Shah Hussain Murtazawi, a deputy to the presidential spokesperson ofAfghanistan said Iran should focus on its own problems and start heedingthe demands of dissidents Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who areunder house arrest, rather than the Taliban’s.
In December a delegation from the Taliban visited Tehran and met IranianDeputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghci.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi had said that the Afghangovernment knew about the visit.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told India’s NDTV on Wednesday duringhis visit to New Delhi that the Taliban must retain a role in Afghanistan’sfuture without dominating it. (AA)
