US will back education sector ‘conditionally’

Thomas West, US special representative for Afghanistan said that Washington is committed to providing humanitarian aid for Afghans.

West in an interview with PBS News said that their humanitarian aid is not conditional for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA).

“So we are not conditioning humanitarian assistance on anything that Taliban (IEA) moves forward with, so that $474 million is moving, ” he said.

The US envoy said that they will however help Afghanistan’s education sector, if the IEA does not bring changes to the curriculum used over the past 20 years.

“I would sketch for you may be two areas of really strong consensus with in the international community, when it comes to the potential support of teachers, again through the world. One is that we want to see a serious and rigorous academic curriculum, we have received strong assurances from the Taliban (IEA) that they have no interest in revising the curriculum of the last 20 years, second we want to see more quiet efforts to be put into effect, monitor and give us confidence that when the Taliban

(IEA) say women and girls are back in schools, they tell us back in 12 provinces, we want independent monitors to let us know the same,” said West.