Girls’ schools in Afghanistan will most likely be re-opened soon, the Taliban said, adding the group is “committed”  and "optimistic" of opening schools for all girls from the new academic session which will start in March. Currently, only girls up to six standard are allowed in schools since the regime change in August last year. 

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan [the name the Taliban refers to its regime] has no issue with girls’ education; that is why we have paid the salaries of female teachers. We will hire more female teachers for girls,” Aziz Ahamd Ryan, the spokesperson of the Taliban’s Ministry of Education, was quoted as saying by Khaama Press, a day after the group's talks in Oslo, Norway. 

Since coming to power last year, the group remains under immense pressure from the international community and rights activists, both within and outside the country, to reopen schools for girls. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, in a recent interview to CNN,  emphasised on the importance of allowing girls' education.

Although the Taliban has never explicitly talked about banning girls - especially senior girls - from education, it reiterated its claim that they had been working on creating a “safe environment” and “capacity building” by increasing the number of female teachers. 
 
Significantly, Norway hosted a Taliban delegation led by the group’s interim Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Sunday and Monday and facilitated talks with other non-Taliban Afghans from diverse backgrounds, including women's representatives.  

“Both sides listened to the takes of each other patiently, and they agreed to be working for the betterment of Afghanistan’s economic, political, and security situation as it is a shared country of all,” read a joint statement released after the meeting.

It added, “Participants of the meeting agreed that solution for all the conflicts in Afghanistan is negotiations and reconciliation and that such meetings are in the favor of Afghanistan.” 

Taliban officials also discussed humanitarian aid, the release of frozen Afghan national reserves, and other issues in their meetings with special representatives of the US, UK, Norway, Germany, Italy, Qatar, France, and the EU. 

(SAM)