Diplomats can meet detained foreigners, says Taliban

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, AUG 9 The Taliban has agreed to allow diplomats to visit Kabul and meet eight foreigners detained in Kabul on charges of promoting Christianity even as Pakistani religious parties issued a warning to the United Nations that monitors sent to Pakistan to tighten sanctions against the Afghan Taliban regime would be treated as enemies.

The decision of the Taliban authorities to detain eight foreigners associated with various aid agencies on charges of promoting Christianity threatens to become a major issue between the Afghanistan Government and the various international aid agencies engaged in humanitarian help in different parts of Afghanistan.

A few months ago the United Nations had threatened to withdraw all its aid workers from Afghanistan if the Taliban did not stop harassment of the aid workers by `guests' of the Taliban. The obvious reference was to volunteers from the Arab world who are in Afghanistan to fight against the enemies of the Taliban.

In another development, the Council for the Defence of Afghanistan (CDA), a conglomerate of various religious outfits in Pakistan, have asked Pakistan to resist moves by the Security Council to deploy monitors in six countries surrounding Afghanistan.

The United Nations through a resolution recently had decided on a mechanism of monitors to oversee the implementation of the sanctions imposed on the Afghanistan Government in January this year.

"We are determined to foil this. We demand that the Government of Pakistan rejects this and if they fail to do so we will take every action to disrupt it," the CDA chief, Maulana Samiul Haq, said.

"It is an intrusion in the sovereignty and internal affairs of Pakistan and Afghanistan and the U.N. has acted without any justification at the behest of the United States. It is like accepting the presence of a thief in the house and not doing anything to throw him out", he said.

Maulana Haq said the CDA would hold a demonstration in Islamabad on August 19 to condemn the monitoring proposal. "We have also called a national convention of all religious and political parties for a joint strategy the same day," he said. The council on Thursday passed a resolution urging all "patriotic" Pakistanis to resist the move.

"Special sermons would be offered during Friday prayers to mobilise public opinion against the U.N. decision," the resolution said. The Musharraf Government has criticised the monitoring proposal as a "unilateral" decision and an attack on its sovereignty, but has promised to cooperate as a responsible member of the U.N.

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Section  : International
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