NEW DELHI: The United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said ‘Afghanistan would be a pariah state” if the Taliban took control by force.
“An Afghanistan that does not respect the rights of its people, an Afghanistan that commits atrocities against its own people would become a pariah state,” Blinken told reporters in India on Wednesday during his first official visit.
In New Delhi, Blinken warned the Taliban it would have to change if it wanted global acceptance.
“The Taliban says that it seeks international recognition, that it wants international support for Afghanistan. Presumably, it wants its leaders to be able to travel freely in the world, sanctions lifted, etc,” he said.
“The taking over of the country by force and abusing the rights of its people is not the path to achieve those objectives.”
In China, the Taliban’s leadership assured Beijing the group will not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for plotting against another country.
A delegation including co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is in China for talks as the group continues a sweeping offensive across Afghanistan, including areas along their shared border.
Their frontier is just 76 kilometres (47 miles) long – and at a rugged high altitude without a road crossing – but Beijing fears Afghanistan could be used as a staging ground for Uighur separatists in Xinjiang.
