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Our country has no problem with any religion: Macron
French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that his country has no problem with any religion, the French embassy in Kabul tweeted.
“All religions are freely active in this land. Space is free from the label of shame & disgrace.” the embassy quoted Macron as saying.
Macron also said that France is interested in and dependent on peace and coexistence.
The embassy’s tweet comes after Kabul residents took to the streets of Kabul on Wednesday in protest against Macron’s controversial remarks about Islam.
The protest, outside the French Cultural Center in Kabul city drew cries such as “death to France” and “death to Macron”.
Kabul high school students also protested against Macron’s remarks.
Wednesday’s demonstration came amid a standoff between France and Muslim countries after Macron reacted to the beheading of a French schoolteacher who had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a lesson about freedom of speech.
In addition to Wednesday’s protest in Kabul, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hizb-i-Islami held a press conference and called on the Afghan government to cut all diplomatic ties with France and boycott French goods.
Despite the outcry by Muslim nations around the world over Macron’s remarks, the French president accused Muslims of separatism and vowed not to censor freedom of speech.
French goods have, however, already been pulled from supermarket shelves in Qatar and Kuwait, among other Gulf states, and in Syria people have burned pictures of Macron and French flags have been torched in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan also weighed in last week and wrote to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg requesting that the social media company ban Islamophobic content on its platform, similar to that in place for the Holocaust.
After Khan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also called on the nation to boycott French goods.
Speaking in a televised speech in Ankara Erdogan said: “Never give credit to French-labelled goods, don’t buy them.”
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Kazakhstan calls for coordinated international engagement with Afghanistan
Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi has called for pragmatic and coordinated international engagement with Afghanistan, saying the country’s long-term stability is closely linked to the security and sustainable development of Central Asia.
Speaking during the general debate of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday, Tileuberdi said humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan remains essential but alone cannot break the cycle of poverty, displacement and dependency.
He said Kazakhstan supports a “pragmatic, coordinated and step-by-step” approach to international engagement with Afghanistan, with the United Nations playing a central role.
Tileuberdi also said Kazakhstan is working with the UN to operationalize the United Nations Regional Centre for the Sustainable Development Goals for Central Asia and Afghanistan in Almaty.
He said the success of the centre should be measured by the results and assistance it delivers to the region.
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