TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Unfolding Stories
Taliban pledge to be ‘different’, as Afghans flee
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
T
he Taliban have offered a pledge of reconciliation, vowing no revenge against opponents and to respect women’s rights in a “different” rule of Afghanistan from two decades ago.
The announcements came on Tuesday night shortly after the return to Afghanistan of their cofounder, crowning the group’s astonishing comeback after being ousted by a United States-led invasion in 2001.
With huge concerns globally about the Taliban’s brutal human rights record – and tens of thousands of Afghans still trying to flee the country – they held their first press conference from Kabul.
“All those in the opposite side are pardoned from A to Z,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told foreign and local reporters, revealing his identity for the first time.
“We will not seek revenge.”
Mujahid said the new regime would be “positively different” from their 1996-2001 stint, which was infamous for deaths by stoning, girls being banned from school and women from working in contact with men.
“If the question is based on ideology, and beliefs, there is no difference [...] but if we calculate it based on experience, maturity and insight, no doubt there are many differences,” Mujahid told reporters.
