DOHA, 15 October 2021, (TON): Qatar’s foreign minister said isolating Afghanistan and its new Taliban rulers will never be an answer and argued that engaging with the former insurgents could empower the more moderate voices among them.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani spoke amid a flurry of diplomatic meetings taking place in Qatar, where the Taliban have maintained a political office for years in the lead-up to their takeover of Afghanistan in August.

The world has been looking to see how the Taliban transition from two decades of insurgency and war to governance after they seized control of Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan as US and Nato forces withdrew from the country.

This week, the United States, 10 European nations and European Union representatives held face-to-face talks with Taliban leaders in Doha, the Qatari capital the first such meetings since the Taliban blitz.

Al Thani told “an audience of counter-terrorism specialists in Doha that Qatar believes the international community should urge the Taliban to take the right steps and to incentivise” that rather than talking only of penalising them for negative steps.”

Al Thani added “we see that its very important to provide guidance for them,” he said. This will create an incentive for progress and for the way forward.” This will help the moderate power (voices) to also provide an incentive to be more influential and more effective in their government.”