Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US special envoy for Afghanistan, said Monday that the deputy foreign minister Shir Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai’s remarks on the violation of women’s rights was a “promising development”.

On Saturday, Stanikzai criticized the ban on education of women and girls and appealed to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) leader to scrap the ban on education for women.

“We call on the leadership again to open the doors of education,” he said.

He called the exclusion of girls from education an “injustice” on the part of the Islamic Emirate against 20 million of the 40 million people in Afghanistan.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony at a religious school in Khost, Stanikzai said that the Islamic Emirate’s stance was not in accordance with Sharia.

He said: “Today we are doing injustice to 20 million of the 40 million people. Will we not rise on the Day of Judgment paralyzed and having denied all rights? The right of inheritance is not given to girls. The right to choose a husband is not given.

“We get girls married in Baad practice. We don’t allow education. We don’t allow them to go to the mosque. The doors of the universities and schools are closed. We don’t even let them go to madrassa. Are we acting in accordance with the Sharia?”

“Another issue is that the whole world has a problem with us on this issue. They criticize us about it. But the path we have taken is a matter of our own liking, not the Sharia,” he said.

It is not the first time he has said that women and girls deserve to have an education. He made similar remarks in September 2022, a year after schools closed for girls and months and before the introduction of a university ban.

But the latest comments marked his first call for a change in policy and a direct appeal to the Islamic Emirate’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Stanikzai is a senior member of the IEA and headed up peace talks in Doha, Qatar, prior to the collapse of the former government.

As special envoy for Afghanistan, Khalilzad was lead negotiator during these talks.

On Monday, Khalilzad welcomed his stance and said Stanikzai is an important IEA official, who played a key role in the Doha negotiations.

He asked other Afghan religious scholars and leaders of the Islamic Emirate who privately oppose the ban on girls’ education to make their opposition public.

He also emphasized that schools and universities should be reopened by the beginning of the new solar year, in late March.

Khalilzad also welcomed the positions of Muslim scholars at the recent Islamabad International Conference which focused on girls education in Muslim societies.

It was at this conference that scholars said a ban on women’s education was against the teaching of Islam.