By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

Last week the new rulers of Afghanistan, who on August 15 completed their first year in power following the end of the 20-year US occupation and destruction of the country, assured Iran of honouring the 1973 water agreement between the two Muslim neighbours.
We earnestly hope the Taliban militia, which the Islamic Republic has not yet officially recognized as the government in Kabul both because of its tumultuous past as well as its present failure to form a broad-based all-inclusive national cabinet representing the various ethnic and religious groups of the country, will keep its words by not diverting the waters of the Helmand and Harid Rivers that originate in Afghanistan and empty into the Sistan-Baluchestan basin.
To quote Foreign Minister Amir Hossein Abdollahian, after talks with Taliban officials: “If the issue of Iran’s share of the Helmand River is not resolved quickly and seriously, this will have negative effects in other areas of cooperation between the two countries.”
The Islamic Republic, which over the past forty-plus years has hosted millions of Afghan refugees fleeing wars, occupation, and economic catastrophes in their homeland, views the security and stability of its eastern neighbour as its own, and is thus prepared to help resolve all issues, including elusive national solidarity and the US-sponsored terrorism of the Daesh outfit, in view of the common history, religion, culture, language and, of course, the future of the two countries.
Tehran had strongly opposed the decade long (1979-89) Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as well as the 20-year death and destruction unleashed by the US occupiers, by firmly supporting the national governments that were formed in Kabul.
As a matter of fact, the water dispute is not new and had emerged almost half-a-century ago with the seizure of power by Daud Khan from Zahir Shah and the resulting instability that followed because of foreign occupation interspersed with coups and counter-coups by communists and later by the tribal leaders until last year’s dubious American withdrawal that placed the Taliban in power in Kabul.
It should be recalled that the Taliban militia which was formed by Pashtun tribesmen in the refugee camps in Pakistan through Saudi money, American weapons, and the sectarian designs of the host country’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) based on the narrow version of Islam of the India-based Deobandi religious school, had seized Kabul in 1996 after bloody battles with the internationally-recognized national government of President Burhanoddin Rabbani, to unleash a reign of terror for five years until its overthrow in 2001.
The Taliban had tarnished the image of Islam by implementing harsh medieval European laws mixed with pre-Islamic Pashtunwali tribal code on the pretext of the Shari’ah by discriminating against religious and ethnic groups, massacring opponents, denying food supplies to starving civilians, destroying cultural monuments, burning public libraries, banning women from school and work, and last but not the least violating the diplomatic immunity of the Iranian consulate in the city of Mazar-e Sharif to kill eleven diplomats and IRNA correspondent Mahmoud Saremi.
The militia had also prohibited many sporting events, including football, and penalized kite-flying by children and the keeping of pigeons and other pets. The poor birds and animals were simply slaughtered in violation of Islamic laws.
Today, the apologists say the Taliban have mellowed and given up their brutal past. They note that the militia is no longer anti-Shi’a Muslim, wants friendly ties and trade with Iran, and had condemned the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani by hailing him as “a great warrior of Islam.”
Critics, however, are far from satisfied by pointing out the re-imposition of the ban on women employees, the cancellation of the Nowruz and Ashura holidays, some stray incidents on the Iranian border, and the refusal by the Ghilzai tribal leadership to exclude not just the Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, and Aymaqs from the government, but also fellow Sunni Pashtuns belonging to other tribes and holding differing political views.
This does not augur well for the future of both Afghanistan and the Taliban militia, who will end up as just another group of travelers passing through Kabul after temporary exercise of power through the barrel of the gun.
Iran for its part denounces Washington’s withholding of the 3.5 billion dollars of Afghanistan’s own money, and has shown willingness to help stabilize the country by emphasizing that only a broad-based government which represents all other ethnic and religious groups can ensure peace and progress.
It is now up to the present Taliban rulers, who have been asked by Tehran to track down and punish all those involved in the killing of the Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e Sharif, to practically prove their claims of sound and healthy relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran.