PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is ready to cooperate and improve ties with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, says Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
Bernama reported that Anwar conveyed Malaysia’s position to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which is ready to assist in forging ties between the two countries.
However, he said Malaysia stood firm on the issue of women’s education and believed that the right of the group to education could not be denied.
“The problem now is their (the Taliban’s) attitude towards women’s education, whether they want to build a university specifically for women or a special women’s school, it’s their choice, but they cannot deny women’s right to education,” he told reporters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after attending the OIC meeting.
Earlier this month, the UN described Afghanistan as the “most repressive country” in the world for women’s and girls’ rights. In 2022, the Taliban banned girls from attending secondary schools, colleges and universities.
However, last Friday, Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi was reported to have said that girls would be allowed to return to schools as soon as internal issues in the country were resolved.
Taliban leaders have repeatedly claimed they will reopen secondary schools for girls once “conditions” have been met, from obtaining funding to remodelling the syllabus along Islamic lines.
