In a news conference on Thursday, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the temporary Taliban government does not represent what the international community and the US had wanted to see.
Three weeks after storming into complete control with the conquest of Kabul on August 15, the Taliban named the first members of a new “acting” government earlier this week.
The new cabinet includes top Taliban leaders, some of whom have been linked to attacks on US troops in the past two decades.
Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, one of the movement’s founders and a UN blacklist indictee, will lead it.
“We have spoken about our reaction to the initial caretaker government. You have heard us say that the lack of inclusivity, the track records, the backgrounds of some of the individuals involved, are a cause for concern. It certainly does not reflect what the international community and what, as a part of that, the United States hoped to see,” Price told reporters.
He said that the US noted that this is an initial caretaker government. “We note that some of these positions remain unfulfilled. So what will be important to us is not only the composition of any future government of Afghanistan…again, we will look to see to it that it is inclusive, to see to it that it is representative of the people that the Taliban purport to represent,” he said.
Price emphasized that the United States and the international community will continue to “hold the Taliban to account for its public and private commitments” made to the US many of its close partners.
Price mentioned a ministerial discussion held a day before by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
After a previous time in power characterized by deadly vendettas and women’s subjugation, world countries have warned the Taliban that the path to peace and prosperity is an inclusive administration that would back up its pledges of a more conciliatory approach and upholding human rights.
Price said during his press conference that several points of agreement emerged during the meeting on the Taliban and that many of the participants asked key questions:
Price said the questions remain unanswered. “We will together be able to answer those questions with our allies and partners as we start to see how the Taliban is going to purport to govern, how it will treat its people, how it will treat our people, how it will confront threats not only to the Taliban but threats to us as well,” he said.
The US has previously expressed worry about the track records of certain Cabinet members, noting that no women had been selected. “The world is watching,” a spokesman for the US State Department stated earlier this week.
Afghans, who have made significant progress in education and civil liberties under the US-backed government for the last two decades, are wary of Taliban intentions, and daily protests have continued since the Taliban assumed power, opposing the new rulers.
