(The International News): A Taliban spokesman has expressed scepticism over a proposal by the United States for an interim government in Afghanistan, saying transitional governments have proved ineffective and that the group\u2019s vision for the country revolved around a strong central administration capable of enforcing their definition of an Islamic system of governance. Washington had earlier in March proposed replacing the current government with an interim administration until a new constitution is agreed and elections are held, while a joint commission monitors a ceasefire. Under the proposal, the national parliament could either be expanded to include Taliban members or suspended until after an election is held. But Muhammad Naim, a Taliban spokesman, said on Sunday that the group did not believe an interim government could deal with the country\u2019s challenges. \u201cOne need only look at our country\u2019s past experiences over the last 40 years and the wars it has witnessed. Transitional governments were formed after the American occupation, some of them transitional, others participatory, but none of them have solved the country\u2019s problems,\u201d Naim said. \u201cWe want an Islamic system that is strong and independent in order to solve the country\u2019s problems and these foundational [questions] must be taken into consideration,\u201d he said. Naim reaffirmed the need for foreign troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, as stated in a landmark agreement reached with the US in Doha last year. Violence has spiked in recent months ahead of the May 1 withdrawal deadline. Residents of the Afghan capital Kabul are terrorised by runaway crime, bombings and assassinations, and complain bitterly of security failures. The United Nations Security Council has expressed concern at a number of targeted killings aimed at civil society activists, journalists, lawyers and judges. The ISIL (ISIS) group has taken responsibility for many but the Taliban and the government blame each other for the spike in attacks. Afghanistan\u2019s Minister of the Interior Masoud Andarabi on Sunday said government forces could hold their ground even if US troops withdrew. \u201cThe Afghan security forces are fully capable of defending the capital and the cities and the territories that we are present in right now,\u201d Andarabi told The Associated Press. \u201cWe think that the Afghan security forces this year have proven to the Taliban that they will not be able to gain territory,\u201d he said while conceding a hasty, uncalculated withdrawal by US forces could offer an opportunity to armed groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(The International News): A Taliban spokesman has expressed scepticism over a proposal by the United States for an interim government in Afghanistan, saying transitional governments have proved ineffective and that the group\u2019s vision for the country revolved around a strong central administration capable of enforcing their definition of an Islamic system of governance. Washington had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archived-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3312,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3311\/revisions\/3312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caps.af\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}