MOSCOW, September 3. /TASS/. The radical Taliban movement (outlawed in Russia) has not yet clarified its stance regarding the resumption of sessions by both houses of the Afghan parliament, the deputy speaker of the House of Elders (upper house), Mohammad Akbar Stanikzai, told TASS on Friday.
"We (legislators) are in recess. The pause in our work is to end September 7. Then we will see if the Taliban allow us to proceed with our work. For now, the prospects for the activity of the upper and lower house of parliament remain uncertain," he said.
Stanikzai said that the formation of the Taliban’s Cabinet of Ministers also remained suspended.
"It is hard for me to say what kind of government there will be. The way I see it, such a delay by the Taliban is a sure sign they are cautious and in no mood to rush things," the legislator said.
On August 20, the spokesman for the Qatar-based political wing of the Taliban movement, Suhail Shaheen, said the Taliban were going to change Afghanistan’s Constitution ahead of general elections. In other words, the new authorities are going to have some contacts with the current composition of parliament somehow.
It is expected that the Taliban may disclose the makeup of their Cabinet of Ministers on September 3. On Wednesday, a member of the Taliban’s cultural commission, Anamullah Samangani, told TOLO News the movement’s leader Mulla Hibatullah Akhundzada, might take over as Afghanistan’s new prime minister. On the same day, the Khama Press news agency quoted sources as saying that Abdul Ghani Baradar would be appointed as foreign minister, Mullah Yaqoob will take the position of defense minister, and Khalifa Haqqani (son of one of the Taliban’s leaders Jalaluddin Haqqani) will become interior minister.
The Taliban movement launched a large-scale operation for control of Afghanistan after the United States last spring declared its intention to pull out its troops. On August 15, President Ashraf Ghani stepped down and left the country. The Taliban entered the capital Kabul without encountering resistance. The United States’ 20-year-long military presence in Afghanistan ended on the night of August 31, when the last American soldiers were out of the country.