Britain says it wants to engage with the Taliban

ISLAMABAD, Sept. 3 (Reuters) – Britain will not recognize the Taliban as the new government in Kabul, but will have to deal with the new realities in Afghanistan and does not want to see its social and economic fabric broken. say Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Friday.

On a visit to Pakistan, Raab said it would not have been possible to evacuate some 15,000 people from Kabul without cooperation with the Taliban, who seized the capital on 15 August.

“The approach we take is that we do not recognize the Taliban as a government,” he said, adding that Britain normally recognizes states instead of governments.

“We see the importance of being able to participate and have a direct line of communication.”

Raab’s comments reflect the balance between countries like Britain and the United States trying to attack after the Taliban’s quick victory and the collapse of the Western-backed Kabul government.

Western countries fear that an impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and an economic collapse could create hundreds of thousands of refugees.

But they are wary of the Taliban’s promises that Afghanistan will not return to the harsh fundamentalist rule exercised during its last period in power before 2001.

“The Taliban have made a number of commitments: some of them are positive in terms of words. We need to test them and see if that translates into facts,” Raab added.

“It is important at this stage to establish or judge the Taliban for these early, initial and probably fairly modest tests and see if they are given.”

He said Britain had released the first tranche of a £ 30m ($ 41.5m) humanitarian assistance package for Afghanistan’s neighbors, which may have to bear the brunt of any major exodus. .

Raab added that the aid budget for Afghanistan had been increased to £ 286 million, but future payments would go through aid groups.

($ 1 = £ 0.7229)

Reports by Asif Shahzad and Gibran Peshimam; Written by James Mackenzie; Edited by Catherine Evans and Clarence Fernandez

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