Islamabad:
Afghanistan can no longer be a priority for the United States, but the actions taken by President Donald Trump in the first days in the White House suggested that the Taliban government would be under the US scanner.
The Trump administration has adopted a difficult policy towards the Taliban government, since it had made two main decisions that have directly affected the country.
A few minutes after being oath as 47th President of the United States, Trump issued a series of executive orders. These orders also included a decree that immediately arrested the foreign assistance of the United States and the Afghanistan refugee plan.
The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, transmitted to all US missions through a diplomatic cable to suspend all foreign assistance to review to determine if the financing was aligned with the Trump’s foreign policy agenda and the Trump’s foreign policy agenda and the interests of the United States.
The Trump camp has long questioned taxpayers’ money to countries, which at some point work against the interests of the United States. Afghanistan was the main beneficiary of the aid, since the United States pumped at least $ 3 billion to Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban since August 2021 under humanitarian assistance.
American help played a fundamental role in keeping Afghanistan’s economy afloat. But from the last Trump movement, the Afghanistan currency lost value against the US dollar, which triggers inflation.
President Trump warned the Taliban to return the weapons of the United States before any help. The other movement that may not have a direct relationship with the Taliban government, but thousands of Afghans, who worked for the US army and its contractors during their campaign in Afghanistan.
They were promised to resettle in the United States as part of the Biden administration policy. However, that plan was also suspended. At least 40,000 Afghan were affected by the movement. Approximately 25,000 are currently in Pakistan, waiting for more than three years to go to the United States.
Meanwhile, in another last line posture signal towards the Afghan rulers, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio American hostages than those previously informed.
“Just listening to the Taliban is retaining more American hostages than it has been reported,” Rubio said in a publication on the social media platform X. “If this is true, we will have to immediately place a great reward in its main leaders , maybe even bigger than we had in Bin Laden, “he added.
The publication did not give more details or specify the number of Americans held by the Taliban. The authorities in Kabul said last week that the United States released an Afghan condemned by an American court for charges of drug smuggling and extremism in exchange for two US citizens held in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials said Tuesday that man, Khan Mohammad, had landed in Kabul after being released. A spokesman for the Taliban administration confirmed that two Americans were released in the exchange.
Trump’s executive order to stop admission for at least 90 days from January 27 has blocked around 10,000 Afghan approved to enter at the beginning of new lives in the United States, according to the non -profit organization #AFGhanevac.
Trump promised to the expulsion of Afghanistan in his first term, but the process was supervised by his successor President Joe Biden. A special visa program for Afghas that were used by or on behalf of the United States remain active.
The Taliban government has announced an amnesty and encouraged those who fled to return to rebuild the country. However, Moniza Kakar, a lawyer who works with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, said some women told him that “they prefer the suicide than to return to Afghanistan.”
At the beginning of 2022, a report from the US Department of Defense. Those including airplanes, air-terrain ammunition, weapons communications equipment and other materials, then seized by the Taliban.
Trump had said in a demonstration on the eve of his oath, that the United States wanted his military team to return to the Taliban. “If we are going to pay billions of dollars a year, tell them that we will not give them the money unless they return our military team,” he said
(With AFP entrance)
