Michael McCaul, Republican chair of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, has said that any aid or assistance Washington gives to Afghanistan has to be conditioned on treatment of women and children.

In an interview with the Voice of America, McCaul said that girls in Afghanistan should be allowed to go to school and enjoy their fundemental rights.

Referring to the restrictions against women, he said that Afghanistan has now returned to the "Stone Age".

McCaul also said that by not including the Afghan government in the Doha negotiations, Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US special representative for Afghanistan peace, made a big error.

“They (Afghan government) felt like they were sidelined,” he said.

McCaul also stated that the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan without an action plan was a “fatal flaw” because many Americans and their Afghan allies were left behind.

This comes as the Islamic Emirate has said that the rights of women and girls are an internal issue of Afghanistan and Sharia laws must be respected.

IEA has also said that foreign aid to Afghanistan is managed by international organizations and the Islamic Emirate does not use it.

Pakistan's jailed former prime minister, Imran Khan, said on Friday that terrorism cannot be eliminated without having dialogue with the authorities in Afghanistan.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Khan expressed his support for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapour's proposal for a direct dialogue with Kabul.

“Ali Amin is absolutely right,” Imran Khan stated. “They should be beseeching him to go and talk to Afghanistan for the sake of God."

A day earlier, Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif criticized Gandapur's plan to talk to Kabul, saying it was a direct attack on the federal government.

When questioned about the possibility of a province directly engaging with another country when a federal government and the Foreign Office were already in place, Imran Khan replied: "Forget the Foreign Office, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been the most affected by terrorism.”

He said that a large number of policemen in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been killed in the fight against terrorism and if terrorism is not controlled, the economy will come to a standstill.

Khan urged the government to lend a hand to anyone attempting to eradicate the menace of terrorism.

"If someone is trying to end terrorism, cooperate with them," he stated, dismissing the perception that Gandapur’s intentions were anti-state. "Ali Amin is speaking in the favour of the country, not against it."

Clarifying Gandapur’s stance, he pointed out, "Ali Amin spoke about going but didn’t say he was leaving immediately, — he didn’t even fix a time." Khan concluded his talk by saying, "What wrong has Ali Amin said?"

Gandapur announced on Wednesday that he would send a delegation to Afghanistan to resolve bilateral issues.

Pakistan's Special Representative on Afgha­nistan, Asif Durrani, has been removed from his position due to differences over Afgha­nistan policy, local newspaper Dawn reported.

Durrani was relieved of his duties last Tuesday.

Durrani was appointed in May 2023 with the expectation that he would resolve the stalemate in Islamabad-Kabul relations, particularly regarding TTP. Despite initiatives and goodwill gestures, the deadlock persisted.

Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have turned sour due to attacks in Pakistan. Pakistani officials claim that the attacks are organized in Afghanistan, but the Islamic Emirate denies the claims, saying that Afghanistan is not responsible for Pakistan's "security failure".

Though Durrani advocated for a ‘one document’ regime for Afghan visitors, he opposed mass deportations of undocumented Afghans, arguing it would reflect badly on Pakistan’s border controls and harden the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) stance. He suggested a low-key approach to addressing the issue of illegal Afghans.

He believed Pakistan needed to manage its terrorism problem domestically.

His predecessor, Moham­­mad Sadiq, had also resigned from the position.