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Taliban Ignoring International Pressure
KABUL, March 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban is to meet with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in Pakistan in a bid to justify the Islamic regime's destruction of ancient statues and to abort the wave of international condemnation.
"I will tell him that what we are doing is an internal religious issue. It is not aimed at challenging the world," Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel said from the Taliban's seat of power in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan.
U.N. officials in Afghanistan confirmed Annan would meet Mutawakel on Sunday, when he is also expected to hold talks with Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf.
The U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution Friday urging the Taliban to cease the destruction of the statues, including two huge Buddha figures in central Bamiyan province.
"We would like to repeat that the decree is irreversible. It is a religious and internal issue," Mutawakel said, adding that "work" on the country's pre-Islamic heritage was continuing.
Taliban officials late Friday said almost a quarter of the two enormous Buddhas had been destroyed, implementing an edict issued last week to stop idolatry.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported that the Taliban used "explosives" to destroy the head on the 50-meter tall statue, the largest standing Buddha in the world.
In 1998, Taliban commanders blew the head on the smaller statue, some 34.5 meters tall, shortly after they captured the province from opposition forces
The Taliban have been attacking the figures, carved into sandstone cliffs more than 1,500 years ago when Afghanistan was a seat of Buddhism, with everything from tanks and rockets to dynamite.
"Work is underway but I do not know how much of them has been destroyed," Mutawakel said.
Mutawakel, who blames the U.N. for the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, said he would raise the issue of sanctions against the country with Annan during talks.
Diplomatic efforts intensified Saturday as Pakistan, the Taliban's closest ally, sent Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider to Afghanistan.
"The Pakistani delegation will hold talks with Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar in yet another attempt to stop the destruction of Buddhist statues," a foreign office spokesman said.
"The minister will reiterate the appeal of the government and people of Pakistan to Afghan authorities not to destroy the statues in line with the spirit of Islam and international sentiments."
Three Japanese politicians on a special mission to persuade the Taliban to stop the destruction held long meetings with Mutawakel in Kandahar on Friday, but the talks failed.
"We are trying to remove this misunderstanding that what we are doing is against Buddhist countries," Mutawakel said.
Afghanistan was a center of Buddhism until around the ninth century before Islam came to the region.
A delegation of top Islamic scholars led by prominent Islamic scholar Youssef al-Qaradawi will also go to Afghanistan within a few days to meet with Omar in a bid to halt the demolitions.
Qaradawi issued an edict last week stating that Afghanistan's statues are not idols, and thus would not threaten Muslim beliefs or contradict Islamic doctrine.
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