KABUL —
Afghanistan's Taliban authorities said
Saturday they will resume issuing passports in Kabul, giving hope to citizens
who feel threatened living under the Islamists' rule.
اضافة اعلان
Thousands of Afghans have applied for new
travel documents to escape a growing economic as well as a humanitarian crisis
described by the
UN as an "avalanche of hunger".
Authorities will start issuing the documents
from Sunday at Kabul's passport office, Alam Gul Haqqani, the head of the
passport department in the interior ministry, told reporters.
The Taliban stopped issuing passports
shortly after their August 15 return to power, as tens of thousands of people
scrambled to Kabul's only airport in a bid to catch any international flight
that could evacuate them.
In October, authorities reopened the
passport office in Kabul only to suspend work days later as a flood of
applications caused the biometric equipment to break down.
"All the technical issues have now been
resolved," Haqqani said, adding that initially travel documents will be
given to those who had already applied before the office suspended work.
New applications will be accepted from
January 10.
Many Afghans who wanted to visit neighboring
Pakistan for medical treatment have also been blocked in the absence of valid
passports.
"My mother has some health issues and
we needed to go to Pakistan a long time ago, but we could not because the
passport department was closed," said Jamshid, who like many Afghans goes
by only one name.
"We are happy now ... we can get our
passports and go to Pakistan," he said as many began gathering outside the
passport office after Saturday's announcement.
Call for refugees to return
Issuing passports — and allowing people
to leave amid the growing humanitarian crisis — is seen as a test of the
Taliban's commitment to the international community.
The Taliban are pressing donors to restore
billions of dollars in aid that was suspended when the previous Western-backed
regime imploded in the final stages of a
US military withdrawal.
The abrupt withholding of aid has amounted
to an "unprecedented" fiscal shock for an economy already battered by
drought and decades of war, according to the
UNDP.
The crisis has forced many to sell household
possessions to buy food.
On Saturday, the Taliban government's deputy
foreign minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai urged aid agencies to apply
pressure for the release of nearly $10 billion worth of assets held in the US.
Stanekzai also urged all Afghan refugees to
return now that the war had ended.
"We invite and encourage everyone to
return to Afghanistan, even our political opponents," he said at a
function held to mark International Migrants Day.
Afghanistan's minister for refugees Khalil
Haqqani said that humanitarian organizations must help Afghan refugees return
home.
"Afghan refugees living in camps abroad
are in a bad situation. They have to return to Afghanistan and work here,"
said Haqqani, who is a member of the Haqqani network, which was branded a
terror group by Washington.
Over the past four decades, more than six
million Afghans have fled the country to escape war and economic crises, most
of them living in neighboring
Iran and Pakistan.
The international community has so far not
recognized the current Taliban government that was formed after the chaotic
withdrawal of US-led foreign troops.
International flights, mainly to Dubai and
Abu Dhabi, have meanwhile slowly resumed at
Kabul airport after the facility
was trashed in August when crowds of people scrambled to evacuate.
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