Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Islamic Emirate’s Foreign Minister, met with Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh, Iran’s Minister of Agriculture Jihad, in Kabul on Thursday.

Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry said the two sides held comprehensive discussions on bilateral relations, expanding economic and transit cooperation, and holding the seventh meeting of the Joint Economic Commission between the two countries.

Muttaqi welcomed the progress in practical economic and transit cooperation between Afghanistan and Iran, saying there are further opportunities to expand bilateral ties.

Iran’s agriculture minister also stressed the importance of making use of existing opportunities for cooperation in various sectors and called for expanding current areas of cooperation.

HesabPay has unveiled its new Visa card and mobile application at an event in Kabul attended by officials from Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB)

Ahmad Shahpoor Mia Khail, Deputy Director of Supervision at the central bank, urged Afghans to use digital cards for payments and cash withdrawals, saying financial services and public trust remain among the bank’s priorities.

Mia Khail said the digitalization of Afghanistan’s financial system is an important step toward expanding electronic transactions.

“Our sole objective is to enable every Afghan to make payments using a card, mobile phone or other means,” he said.

Company officials said around one million active customers in Afghanistan currently use HesabPay’s services and pledged to expand access to financial services.

Ahmad Khalid Wadan, the owner of one of the companies involved, said the goal goes beyond developing an application and includes building a secure and reliable digital financial system in Afghanistan.

The HesabPay Visa card, integrated with the global Visa network, is directly linked to users’ accounts through the HesabPay application. It allows users to make payments on international websites and applications that accept Visa cards.

Users can also use the card for online purchases, travel and hotel reservations, educational courses, digital subscriptions and other everyday expenses without relying on cash.

HesabPay is a digital payments platform licensed by Afghanistan’s central bank, providing digital financial services to individuals and businesses in Afghanistan and internationally.

The launch comes as Afghanistan’s central bank continues to promote the digitalization of financial and commercial transactions, which it says can improve transparency, speed and the expansion of business activities.

Human Rights Watch in a statement on Wednesday called for the release of two ‌UN staffers and six NGO workers in Afghanistan.

HRW said that six male staff working with the Women and Children Legal Research Foundation (WCLRF) had been “forcibly disappeared” from the NGO’s Kabul ​office last month. The NGO has been involved in aid programmes and advocacy on women’s ​and children’s rights, HRW said.

In a separate incident, Human Rights Watch also called ⁠for the release of two Afghan staff members of the UN’s Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), who were ​detained by IEA officials in the western city of Herat on Sunday.

The IEA’s spokesman, ​Zabihullah Mujahid, told Reuters that he was “trying to gather details” about the recent detentions, but had “not received final clarity.”

The UN confirmed the detention of two of its staffers earlier this week. “UNAMA has not been informed of the charges against them ​and has not been permitted to visit them,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said ​in a briefing on Wednesday.

Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan Researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that the detentions ‌of UNAMA ⁠staff threatened the UN’s “ability to deliver lifesaving aid.”

As the UN’s political mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA is involved in human rights monitoring and data gathering. Its reports have frequently been criticised by the IEA government in the past.