Political analysts suggest that these protests in Kabul and Herat are not spontaneous, but rather planned and aim to explode the new relations between the Taliban and Tehran.
Last Tuesday, dozens of people demonstrated in a square in the center of the Afghan capital, Kabul, to denounce Iran, after videos allegedly showing Iranians beating Afghan refugees spread.
According to the agency, “Agence France Presse”, although the Taliban prohibit public demonstrations, this protest was authorized and took place under security supervision.
This protest came a day after an attack by Afghans on the Iranian consulate in the Pashtun-majority city of the Taliban, chanting slogans including “Death to Iran”, burning tires and the front door, smashing surveillance cameras, and throwing stones at the building.
Meanwhile, dozens of people gathered in front of the Iranian embassy in Kabul, calling on the United Nations to review videos of “Afghans being mistreated” in Iran.
And the Taliban movement, through its spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, had previously called on Iran to treat Afghan refugees “good and humane.”
Tehran’s ambassador in Kabul, Bahader Aminian, responded that the mistreatment of Afghan immigrants is not Iran’s policy, accusing the one who publishes clips of the persecution of Afghan immigrants is the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Movement “with the aim of disturbing relations between Kabul and Tehran,” according to statements in a newspaper published by the agency. Fars News.
Aminian stressed the need for national reconciliation in Afghanistan, because “this will prevent the spread of migration.”
The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Chargé d’Affairs of the Afghan Embassy in Tehran, Rasoul Mousavi, and “strongly protested” against the attacks on the embassy and consulate.
There are more than 3 million Afghan refugees in Iran, some of whom are exploited by the “Fatimiyoun” militias that are fighting in Syria and Iraq, and the flow of Afghans increased after the Taliban movement took power in August 2021.
outside interference
According to the director of the Afghan Center for Media and Studies, Abdul-Jabbar Bahir, there are countries and local hands in Afghanistan that seek to blow up Taliban-Tehran relations after their improvement in the past months and the visit of Taliban delegations to Tehran.
Bahir added that these parties know that the governments of the two countries do not agree on some files, which they seek to invest.
Among the issues in dispute is the Taliban’s objection to Iranian cultural and religious activity in Afghanistan, and its focus on Shiites there.
The role of the Minister of Defense in the Taliban government, Mullah Muhammad Yaqoub, son of the movement’s founder, Mullah Omar, has also emerged in stopping the scheme to divert the waters of the Helmand River, located in southwestern Afghanistan and eastern Iran, which is related to a water crisis that may ignite a century-old conflict.
The length of the Helmand River is estimated at 1,150 km, the longest in Afghanistan, and it flows into Lake Hamun on the border with Iran, which has the lion’s share of its water, and is of strategic importance for providing drinking water and agriculture in eastern Iran, and between the two countries there are frequent disputes over the water share.
The Kurdish dissident and leader of the Kurdistan Serbisti Party in Iran, Arif Bawa Jani, believes that the Afghan protests are a reaction to what he described as the Iranian authorities’ crimes against Afghan refugees, in addition to revealing the anger of the Afghan people over Tehran’s policy towards their country.
He considered that Iran has its plans inside Afghanistan, and will not give up on them even if this leads to a clash with the Taliban movement.
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