(3 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kabul, Afghanistan – 03 July 2024
1. Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid arriving for news conference
2. Wide of news conference
3. Cutaway reporters and Afghan Taliban officials
4. SOUNDBITE (Pashto) Zabiullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesperson:
“Yes, we did talk to the US envoy on some issues including the issue of two US citizens in prison in Afghanistan. We talked to them in the past too on this issue. Afghanistan’s conditions must be recognised, we also have our citizens in prison in the US and Guantanamo. They should also be released. As much as US detainees are important to them, ours are important to us too. We had discussed these issues with them, as we had many issues to discuss there (at the Doha talks). We did discuss this issue and agreed that this issue needs to be resolved.”
5. Reporters and Taliban officials
6. SOUNDBITE (Dari) Zabiullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesperson:
“One thing that was very good was that the U.S. envoy began his remarks by noting development and progress in Afghanistan. First he talked about security and said that they are happy about good security and secondly he said that Afghanistan was able to fight against narcotics."
7. News conference
STORYLINE:
The Taliban’s delegation to the third United Nations-led Doha meeting on increasing engagement with Afghanistan met with U.S. envoys on the sidelines and discussed the two Americans imprisoned in the central Asian country.
Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters in Kabul Wednesday "we did discuss this issue and agreed that this issue needs to be resolved.”
Special Representative Thomas West and Special Envoy Rina Amiri met directly with the Taliban, according to State Department spokesman Vedant Patel.
West pressed for “the immediate and unconditional release of U.S. citizens unjustly detained in Afghanistan,” Patel said on Tuesday.
One of the two Americans believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years is Ryan Corbett who was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-backed government there a year earlier.
He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan’s private sector through consulting services and lending.
Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.
It was the first time that representatives of the Afghan Taliban administration attended the UN-sponsored meeting in the Qatari capital on Sunday and Monday that focused on increasing engagement with Afghanistan.
However, a U.N. official said Monday the gathering did not translate into a recognition of the Taliban government.
Envoys from some two dozen countries also attended the meetings.
The Taliban were not invited to the first meeting, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said they set unacceptable conditions for attending the second one, in February, including demands that Afghan civil society members be excluded from the talks and that the Taliban be treated as the country’s legitimate rulers.
Ahead of Doha, representatives of Afghan women were excluded from attending, paving the way for the Taliban to send their envoys — though the organizers insisted that demands for women’s rights would be raised.
Mujahid said there was an opportunity for them to meet with representatives of various countries and they had 24 sideline meetings.
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