A spokesperson for the Taliban has denied excluding Israel from the list of countries that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is willing to develop friendly relations with. He said this during an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
The Emirate had previously excluded Israel from its list in a clip shared by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
The spokesperson for the Taliban Political Bureau, Dr. Muhammad Naeem, explained the official stance to Al Jazeera, saying, “Our policy is to resolve problems through dialogue and mutual understanding with everybody. Whoever has a problem and wants to resolve it, we are perfectly ready.”
When asked if this includes Israel, he replied, “What problem do we have with Israel? Next thing someone will ask if we are willing to (have a dialogue) with Mars.”
In response to a question about whether the Taliban really don’t have a problem with Israel, Dr. Naeem answered, “I don’t know…This is the media for you…You bring stuff from the end of the world and throw it into the mix of our reality here. This is very strange.”
He continued, “If a country or a person does not have a problem with us, can you ask whether we are willing to resolve the problems with people we have nothing to do with? I think that asking this is unreasonable.”
Despite the Taliban seemingly being open to establishing diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, its earlier statements contradict its latest one.
Speaking with Sputnik News last September, Suhail Shaheen, who heads the Taliban Office in Doha, had asserted, “Of course, we won’t have any relation with Israel. We want to have relations with other countries; Israel is not among these countries.”
