Iran’s former foreign minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif says that at the Bonn conference, the United States planned to establish a “good Taliban government” in Afghanistan, but Europe had tried to establish a monarchy in this country.

Speaking in an interview, Zarif said that Iran met its demands at the Bonn conference and played an important role in the formation of the former government of Afghanistan.

In this interview about Iran’s fight against terrorist groups, Zarif added that accepting terrorist groups in neighboring countries is a violation of the principle of good neighborliness.

He said Tehran had maximum diplomatic coordination with the Americans at the Bonn conference.

The Bonn Conference was held in Bonn, Germany in December 2001 to establish a new government in Afghanistan and prevent chaos after the overthrow of the previous government of the Islamic Emirate.

On December 13, 2001, after 9 days of discussion, a two-stage agreement was signed between the participants, which laid the foundation for the establishment of a new system that would become the republic government.

This government however ruled for 20 years but collapsed in August 2021 and the Islamic Emirate regained control of Afghanistan.

Iran’s hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered to run for president in the country’s June 28 election, organized after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month, Iran’s state television reported on Sunday.

However, Ahmadinejad could be barred from the race. The country’s cleric-led Guardian Council will vet candidates, and publish the list of qualified ones on June 11, Reuters reported.

Ahmadinejad, a former member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, was first elected as Iran’s president in 2005 and stepped down because of term limits in 2013.

He was barred from standing in the 2017 election by the Guardian Council, a year after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned him that entering was “not in his interest and that of the country”.

A rift developed between the two after Ahmadinejad explicitly advocated checks on Khamenei’s ultimate authority.

In 2018, in a rare criticism directed at Khamenei, Ahmadinejad wrote to him calling for “free” elections.

The Polio Free Afghanistan organization announced Sunday in a post on X that a polio vaccination campaign will begin Monday and be carried out across Afghanistan.

The organization stated that the campaign will target children under the age of five.

The organization, however, has not specified how long the campaign will run for.

The last polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan was launched on April 30 of this year, during which about 10 million children under five were vaccinated.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported two positive cases of polio in Kunar and Nuristan provinces this year.