The Taliban in Afghanistan have said they are open to American investment in the country’s mining, agriculture, and trade sector, in a new pitch to the Donald Trump administration to help restore Kabul-Washington ties.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s interim foreign affairs minister, said in an interview to the FT.com Afghanistan would “absolutely” welcome US investments in the Taliban-run mining, infrastructure, agriculture, and trade sectors.
“Relations between Afghanistan and the United States should not be assessed through the lens of the past 20 years of war, but rather on the basis of future co-operation,” he said, speaking to the British daily.
The White House has not issued a comment on Mr Muttaqi’s remarks.
In his previous term, the US president said he was eyeing Afghanistan’s mineral wealth to make the country pay for the war and reconstruction efforts that cost the US $117bn till 2017.
Afghanistan has been identified to have mineral deposits worth more than $1tn in a United States Geological Survey study, offering the country baseline reserves for its economic independence.
The country is home to vast deposits of gold, silver, and platinum in addition to significant quantities of iron ore, uranium, zinc, tantalum, bauxite, coal, natural gas and significant copper, which is crucial as the world is looking at a dearth of rich new copper mines globally.
Mr Muttaqi said “our economic policy is open”, reiterating the pitch the group made to the wider international community to prop up the efforts to get the hardline Islamist regime, which took control of Afghanistan in 2021, recognised.
When the Taliban returned to power amid the withdrawal of the US and its allies, they promised to govern more liberally than they had in the late 1990s and early 2000s – a period marked by public executions, the sheltering of Osama bin Laden and the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas.
But those assurances quickly faltered, human rights groups say. The Taliban have imposed sweeping restrictions on women and girls since 2021, barring 2.5 million of them from secondary schools and universities, and limiting their freedom of movement.
Half of Afghan women now leave their homes only once or twice a month, according to data released by UN Women. The Taliban say they respect women’s rights in accordance with Islamic sharia law. Five years on, their government remains internationally unrecognised, with Russia the only country to have formally recognised it.
Several nations like China, Pakistan, India and Iran have offered bilateral trade and investment deals to the leaders in Afghanistan in exchange for security guarantees.
The Taliban have said it inked more than $7bn worth of mining investments in its five years of rule with countries including China and Iran for gold, gemstones and chromite, which is used in steelmaking.
However, the Trump administration has maintained its distance from the Taliban-run government except to seek their US army military equipment left behind in the war.
The Taliban’s interim minister rejected the claims from the US on its military hardware and infrastructure controlled by the US forces.
“All military and civilian facilities in Afghanistan, including Bagram, are national assets of Afghanistan,” Mr Muttaqi told FT.com but added that the US can reopen its embassy in Kabul.
The Taliban officials have “ensured its security… rebuilt the road and planted new trees”, he said, calling the area “very vibrant and attractive”.