Good news for girls' education in Afghanistan? Taliban says so

Afghanistan's Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said that no one in the Taliban opposed girls' education and "very good news" on the matter would be announced soon.

Afghanistan's interior minister promised “very good news” soon on the return of girls to secondary schools, in a rare interview broadcast Monday by CNN. At the end of March, the Taliban, who took power after US forces withdrew from the country last August, closed high schools and colleges for girls just hours after their reopening.

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The unexpected reversal, ordered by Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban and of the country, outraged many Afghans and the international community.

“I would like to provide some clarification. There is no one who opposes education for women,” said Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, long one of the most secretive Taliban leaders and who only showed his face in public for the first time in March.

He argued that girls could already go to primary school. “Above that grade, the work is continuing on a mechanism” to allow girls to attend secondary school, he said in his first televised interview.

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“Very soon you will hear very good news about this issue,” he said.