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The Taliban has congratulated Donald Trump on winning the presidential race, saying they hoped it marked a “new chapter” in relations with the United States.
The Afghan government, which has not been recognised by any state since they swept to power off the back of an offensive surge in the months and weeks leading up to the US withdrawal, appeared buoyed by the election result, which has seen Trump take 294 electoral college votes so far.
On X, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi expressed hope that a future Trump administration “will take realistic steps toward concrete progress in relations between the two countries and both nations will be able to open a new chapter of relations”.
He underscored that during former president Trump’s first term in power he presided over a peace deal with the Taliban that paved the way for the US withdrawal in 2021 “after which the 20-year occupation ended”.
The Doha agreement was signed on February 29, 2020, in the Gulf state of Qatar between the Taliban and the United States under Trump, but excluded Afghanistan’s then-ruling government.
Republicans have hammered Trump’s successor, current President Joe Biden, for the chaos during the withdrawal, which saw the deaths of 13 US service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport and the near-immediate retaking of the capital by the Taliban.
Biden has been criticised for pushing through with the withdrawal agreed to in Doha without holding the Taliban to conditions such as a ceasefire deal between the militants and the government in Kabul.
The Taliban has not been recognised by any state due to the restrictions it has imposed on women, including access to education and many jobs, which the United Nations has called “gender apartheid”.
Inamullah Samangani, head of the information and culture department in the historical Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, also posted on X: “Americans are not ready to hand over the leadership of their great country to a woman.”
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