Muttaqi | Pakistan

• Taliban foreign minister claims omission of women journalists from his first media interaction was ‘unintentional’ • UN terms Afghan restrictions on women ‘gender apartheid’ • India’s Ministry of External Affairs denies any role in Friday’s press interaction at Afghan embassy A PICTURE is worth a thousand words — and the image splashed across Indian newspapers on Monday, showing female journalists seated prominently in the front row at the Taliban foreign minister’s press conference in Delhi, perfectly embodies that sentiment. The conference — Amir Khan Muttaqi’s second press event at the Afghan embassy within 48 hours — was convened following widespread outrage over the exclusion of female journalists from his initial briefing on Friday, BBC News reported. Mr Muttaqi said at Sunday’s conference that the exclusion was unintentional and not “deliberate”. “With regard to the [Friday’s] press conference, it was on short notice and a short list of journalists was decided, and the participation list that was pre...

Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi provided a clarification on Sunday after furore over the absence of women journalists from a press conference he addressed in New Delhi on Friday. The criticism had notably come from India’s opposition Congress party, which rebuked the Narendra Modi government. There were calls for the Indian government to clarify its position on the matter and questioned its silence on the “discrimination”. Subsequently, Indian news agency ANI posted a video of Muttaqi on X today, in which he was seen clarifying the matter in Pashto. The Afghan foreign minister said, “Our teams had contacted a limited number of journalists for the press conference, and only those journalists were invited … It later emerged that some journalists were not on the list. It was nothing more than that. “Our colleagues thought that those who had been on the list should be invited. So, the participants were limited. It was just this decision and no other.” While there has been no official comment from the go...