NRC Country Director calls for world’s engagement with Kabul

KABUL (TOLOnews): The Norwegian Refugee Council’s country director for Afghanistan has called for the world to diplomatically engage with Afghanistan.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with TOLOnews, Neil Turner said that the ties are important for delivering humanitarian aid to needy Afghans for the reconstruction of the country.

“The Norwegian Refugee Council is a humanitarian, impartial and independent organization. I don’t think that we have an opinion on recognition, what we are calling for is diplomatic engagement, so we need to make sure that there is some future with the support of the wider international community for Afghanistan and that ought to be possible. We need to have diplomatic representation within Afghanistan, there are many embassies that are here, but we need more,” said Neil Turner, NRC’s country director for Afghanistan.

The country director said that current limitations on Afghan women and girls will harm the future of the country he urged a change in the policies. “We are obviously calling for those [limitations on women] to be lifted, one is the education system where women and girls are not allowed to proceed to secondary school or university.

That is very damaging for the future of Afghanistan because where are the nurses and the doctors other professionals going to come from if you are excluding half the population from higher education? So obviously there needs to be a change in that policy,” said Neil Turner, NRC’s country director for Afghanistan. Norwegian Refugee Council’s country director for Afghanistan stressed the need for better planning for Afghanistan and a regional mechanism for resolving the problems of Afghan refugees settled in the neighboring countries.

Neil Turner has too criticized the forced repatriation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan and added that return should be voluntary.

“We have to make sure we have job facilities for people who want to stay in their former settlements… and also those who want to return maybe to the place of origin which they may not been to for many years but they are also able to return… return should be voluntary and based on the international law so that people are not forced to return if they don’t want to,” said Neil Turner, NRC’s country director for Afghanistan.