Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Oil slides 2% on worries about weak demand

By Nia Williams

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Oil prices fell on Tuesday on concerns about weak demand in the United States and Asia, although ongoing production outages on the U.S. Gulf Coast helped to limit losses.

Industry analysts said a strengthening U.S. dollar also weighed on crude prices. A strong dollar makes oil more expensive for holders of other currencies.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down $1.45 or 2.1% from Friday’s close at $67.84 a barrel at 1648 GMT. There was no settlement price for Monday due to the Labor Day holiday in the United States.

Brent crude futures fell 93 cents, or 1.3%, to $71.30 a barrel by, after falling 39 cents on Monday.

The U.S. economy created the fewest jobs in seven months in August as hiring in the leisure and hospitality sector stalled amid a resurgence in COVID-19 infections.

Analysts said the oil market was still assessing the data from Friday as well as Saudi Aramco’s move on Sunday to cut October official selling prices (OSPs) for all its crude grades sold to Asia by at least $1 a barrel.

The deep price cuts, a sign that consumption in the world’s top-importing region remains tepid, come as lockdowns across Asia to combat the Delta variant of the coronavirus have clouded the economic outlook.

“There’s some concern about demand going forward because of a weak jobs report in the U.S. and COVID fears. The market is catching a bad mood,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.

Oil prices found some support from strong Chinese economic indicators and continued outages of U.S. supply from Hurricane Ida.

China’s crude oil imports rose 8% in August from a month earlier, customs data showed, while China’s economy got a boost as exports unexpectedly grew at a faster pace in August.

More than 80% of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico remained shut after Ida, a U.S. regulator said on Monday, more than a week after the storm made landfall and hit critical infrastructure in the region.

(Additional reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar in London and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo; Editing by Jane Merriman and Edmund Blair)

Biden puts focus on climate change, domestic priorities on flood damage trip

By Nandita Bose

HILLSBOROUGH TOWNSHIP, N.J. (Reuters) – President Joe Biden visited flood-damaged New Jersey on Tuesday to survey the upheaval caused by Hurricane Ida, putting a focus on climate change and domestic priorities after weeks of public attention on the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Biden promised federal aid and urged national unity during a trip to storm-hit Louisiana on Friday after Ida devastated parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast and unleashed even deadlier flooding in the Northeast.

On Tuesday, he will be briefed by local leaders in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey, and tour a neighborhood in Manville that was hit hard by the storm.

Later, he will visit a neighborhood in New York City’s Queens borough and deliver remarks there.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Biden would emphasize that one out of three Americans lives in counties that have been impacted by severe weather events in recent months.

“The average costs of extreme weather are getting bigger, and no one is immune from climate change,” Psaki said, referencing what Biden would address in his remarks.

The president’s flood damage trips revive a familiar role of consoler-in-chief, a shift from the time he has spent staunchly defending his decision to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the deadly aftermath that ensued.

Although the Afghanistan issue is not behind him – the United States is still working to get Americans left in the country out, and resettling tens of thousands of evacuees – Biden is expected to focus in the coming days on a fight to protect women’s reproductive rights in the wake of a new Texas anti-abortion law, the end of extended unemployment benefits for many Americans, and new measures to fight COVID-19.

On Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, he will visit the three sites where hijacked U.S. domestic planes crashed, and next week, he plans to visit California to boost Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom’s effort to stay in office amid a recall election.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said on Tuesday it would take “months more likely than weeks” to complete cleanup, repairs and rebuilding after his state was ravaged by flooding and a tornado from the remnants of Storm Ida. He told CNN that Biden, who has issued disaster declarations for six of the state’s counties, had been “pitch perfect” in his response to the storm’s destruction.

Dozens of people have died from the hurricane’s destruction and some states are still grappling with widespread power outages and water-filled homes.

Speaking briefly to reporters on Monday evening after a trip to his home state of Delaware, Biden declared that Tuesday would be a “big day.” The president has used the storm to highlight the need for infrastructure spending in a bill he is working to get through Congress.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Peter Szekely; Writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by Heather Timmons, Dan Grebler and Bernadette Baum)

Texas governor signs Republican-backed voting curbs, prompting lawsuit

By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) -Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed a law imposing a series of voting restrictions – the latest such measure enacted in a Republican-led U.S. state – and civil rights groups immediately filed suit to challenge its legality.

During a signing ceremony in the East Texas city of Tyler, Abbott said the voting restrictions are intended to combat voter fraud, while critics contend they are aimed at making it harder for minorities who tend to back Democratic candidates to cast ballots.

Civil rights organizations sued a group of Texas election authorities in federal court in the state capital Austin. The plaintiffs said the law unduly burdens the right to vote in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and 14th Amendment, while also saying it is intended to limit minority voters’ access to the ballot box in violation of a federal law called the Voting Rights Act.

Marc Elias, a Democratic lawyer who spearheaded the party’s election legal efforts last year, represents the groups, which include the League of United Latin American Citizens, Voto Latino and the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans.

It is the latest in numerous laws passed this year in Republican-led states creating new barriers to voting following Republican former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.

The new Texas law prohibits drive-through and 24-hour voting locations and adds new identification requirements for mail-in voting. It also restricts who can help voters requiring assistance because of language barriers or disabilities, prevents officials from sending out unsolicited mail-in ballot applications and empowers partisan poll-watchers.

The Texas measure won final approval in the Republican-controlled state legislature on Aug. 31 in a special legislative session. Passage came after dozens of Democratic lawmakers fled the state on July 12 to break the legislative quorum, delaying action for more than six weeks.

Abbott and other Texas Republicans have said that the measure balances election integrity with ease of voting.

“It ensures that every eligible voter will have the opportunity to vote,” Abbott said at the signing ceremony. “It does also, however, make sure that it is harder for people to cheat at the ballot box in Texas.”

Election experts have said voting fraud is rare in the United States. Democratic opponents of the Texas measure said Republican legislators during debate over the measure presented no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has likened the voting restrictions enacted in Republican-led states to the so-called Jim Crow laws that once disenfranchised Black voters in Southern states. Democrats in the U.S. Congress have not mustered the votes to pass national voting rights legislation that would counter the new state laws.

Democrats and voting rights advocates have said that the Texas legislation, formally called SB1, disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic voters – important voting blocs for Democrats – a claim denied by its Republican backers.

“Our clients will not waste a minute in fighting against this,” said Ryan Cox, a senior staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project. “We anticipate that numerous organizations and groups of lawyers are going to be challenging different provisions of SB1 for different reasons.”

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Will Dunham)

Taliban fire in air to scatter hundreds of protesters in Kabul

(Reuters) – Taliban gunmen fired in the air on Tuesday to scatter protesters in the Afghan capital Kabul, witnesses said, as video showed scores scurrying to escape volleys of gunfire.

Hundreds of men and women shouting slogans such as “Long live the resistance” and “Death to Pakistan” marched in the streets to protest against the Taliban takeover. Neighboring Pakistan has deep ties with the Taliban and has been accused of assisting the Islamist group’s return to power – charges it denies.

“The Islamic government is shooting at our poor people,” one panic-stricken woman on the street says over sounds of gunfire in a video clip shown on Iranian television news. There were no immediate reports of injuries, however.

The Taliban’s rapid advance across Afghanistan as U.S. forces pulled out last month triggered a scramble to leave by people fearing reprisals.

U.S.-led foreign forces evacuated about 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans, but tens of thousands were left behind.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was in contact with about 100 Americans who were still in Afghanistan.

About 1,000 people, including Americans, have been stuck in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for days awaiting clearance for charter flights to leave, an organizer told Reuters, blaming the delay on the U.S. State Department.

Blinken, holding talks in Qatar, a key interlocutor with the Taliban, said the problem was one of documents.

“My understanding is that the Taliban have not denied exit to anyone holding a valid document, but they have said those without valid documents, at this point, can’t leave,” he told reporters.

“Because all of these people are grouped together, that’s meant that flights have not been allowed to go … We are not aware of anyone being held on an aircraft, or any hostage-like situation.”

AIRPORT RESTART

At the same news conference, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said no deal had yet been reached with the Taliban on how Qatar and its partner Turkey could get Kabul airport running again.

“We hope in the next few days we can get to a level where the airport is up and running for passengers and for humanitarian aid as well,” he said.

Turkey says it wants to provide security inside the airport to protect any Turkish staff and safeguard operations, but that the Taliban have insisted no foreign forces can be present.

On Monday, the Islamist militants claimed victory in the Panjshir valley, the last province holding out against it, and promised to name a government soon.

Pictures on social media showed Taliban members standing in front of the Panjshir governor’s compound after days of fighting with the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), commanded by Panjshiri leader Ahmad Massoud.

Massoud denied that his force, consisting of remnants of the Afghan army as well as local militia fighters, was beaten.

“We are in Panjshir and our resistance will continue,” he tweeted. He said he was safe but did not say where.

The Taliban have repeatedly sought to reassure Afghans and foreign countries that they will not return to the brutality of their last reign two decades ago, marked by violent public punishments and the barring of women and girls from public life.

But more than three weeks after seizing Kabul, they have yet to set out their plans.

Asked whether Washington would recognize the Taliban, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House on Monday: “That’s a long way off.”

STUDENTS SEGREGATED

Teachers and students at universities in Afghanistan’s largest cities – Kabul, Kandahar and Herat – told Reuters that female students were being segregated in class with curtains, taught separately or limited to some campus areas.

“Putting up curtains is not acceptable,” Anjila, a 21-year-old female student at Kabul University, said by telephone, adding that women had sat apart from males in classrooms before the Taliban took over, but without barriers.

“I really felt terrible when I entered the class … We are gradually going back to 20 years ago.”

The conflict in Afghanistan, coupled with drought and coronavirus, has left 18 million people – almost half the population – in need of humanitarian aid, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said.

It said tens of thousands of families had headed for relief camps in urban areas, but found they had neither food nor income.

“Basic services in Afghanistan are collapsing and food and other lifesaving aid is about to run out,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told a news conference in Geneva, urging more aid ahead of an international donor conference on Sept. 13.

The World Health Organization is liaising with Qatar on deliveries of urgently needed medical supplies, WHO regional emergency director Rick Brennan said.

Drought and war have forced about 5.5 million Afghans to flee their homes, including more than 550,000 newly displaced in 2021, the International Organization for Migration says.

Western powers say they are prepared to send humanitarian aid, but that broader economic engagement depends on the shape and actions of the Taliban government.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Clarence Fernandez, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Kevin Liffey; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Qatar and Turkey working to restore Kabul passenger flights, ministers say

ANKARA (Reuters) – Qatar and Turkey are working to restore passenger flights at Kabul airport soon but have yet to agree with Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers how to run the airport, their foreign ministers said on Tuesday.

Both countries have technical teams at the airport and Qatar is chartering near daily humanitarian flights following the withdrawal of U.S. troops a week ago, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said.

“We hope in the next few days we can get to a level where the airport is up and running for passengers and for humanitarian aid as well,” Sheikh Mohammed told a joint news conference in Doha with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

Damage to the airport’s runways, towers and terminals, needs to be repaired before civilian flights can resume, Turkey has said.

Because of the damage, pilots flying into and out of the airport are operating in “fly-as-you-see” mode, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday.

He told Turkish broadcaster NTV that Turkey and Qatar were working to ensure that both humanitarian and commercial flights could operate. “For both of these, the most important criteria is security,” he said.

Turkey says it wants to provide security inside the airport to protect any Turkish team deployed there and safeguard operations, but that the Taliban have insisted there can be no foreign forces present.

Cavusoglu suggested the task could be given to a private security company. “In the future, if everything comes back on track in Afghanistan and the security concern is lifted, Afghan forces can do this.

“But right now, nobody is certain. There is no confidence.”

Cavusoglu said a “pre-delegation” of 19 Turkish technicians was working at Kabul airport with a Qatari team.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ali Kucukgocmen in Ankara, Humeyra Pamuk in Doha, Aziz El YAakoubi and Lisa Barrington in Dubai Editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Potter)

Biden approves New Jersey disaster declaration after flooding brought by Ida

(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden declared that a major disaster exists in New Jersey, days after Hurricane Ida caused intense flooding https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-city-mayor-declares-state-emergency-after-record-breaking-rain-2021-09-02 that killed dozens in the U.S. Northeast.

Biden ordered federal aid to supplement local recovery efforts in the areas affected by the remnants of Hurricane Ida from Sept. 1 to Sept. 3, the White House said in a statement https://bit.ly/3h4RjCM.

Biden will travel to Manville, New Jersey, and the Queens borough of New York City on Tuesday to assess damage from Ida.

In New Jersey, there were at least 27 confirmed storm deaths and four people missing, a spokesperson for Governor Phil Murphy said on Sunday.

Separately, New York Governor Kathy Hochul had said she was requesting Biden to issue a major-disaster declaration for her state.

Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to strike the U.S. Gulf Coast, hit Louisiana about a week ago before moving northeast and causing intense flooding.

Ida’s death toll continued to rise on Sunday, with many in the U.S. Northeast holding out hope for people missing in the floodwaters. Over 500,000 people in Louisiana were without power as of Monday morning, according to the PowerOutage.us website, which tracks power outages.

Ida’s record-breaking rainfall of 3.1 inches (7.8 cm) per hour on Wednesday, recorded in New York City’s Central Park, sent walls of water cascading through businesses, public transportation systems and 1,200 homes, causing more than $50 million in damage, the New York governor said.

She added she was also requesting federal funding through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s individual assistance program for 14 counties.

Hochul said she had directed that $378 million in previously awarded hazard mitigation funding from FEMA be devoted to supporting New York’s infrastructure against extreme weather.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

U.S. probing nearly 350 reports of oil spills in wake of Hurricane Ida

HOUSTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday said it was probing nearly 350 reports of oil spills in and along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Ida.

Hurricane Ida’s 150 mile-per-hour (240 kph) winds wreaked havoc on offshore oil production platforms and onshore oil and gas processing plants. About 88% of the region’s offshore oil production remains shut and more than 100 platforms unoccupied after the storm made landfall on Aug. 29.

The Coast Guard has been conducting flyovers off the coast of Louisiana looking for spills. It is providing information to federal, state and local authorities responsible for cleaning the sites.

Flights on Sunday found evidence of a new leak from an offshore well and reported another leak responsible for a miles-long streak of oil was no longer active. A third report of oil near a drilling platform could not be confirmed, it said.

Offshore oil producer Talos Energy Inc, which hired divers and a cleanup crew to respond to an oil spill in Bay Marchand, said old pipelines damaged during the storm were apparently responsible.

The source of the Bay Marchand leak remains unknown, said Coast Guard spokesman Lieutenant John Edwards. A Coast Guard-led team “will be looking at all potential sources in order to ensure any future risk is mitigated,” he said.

The spill off the coast of Port Fourchon, Louisiana, had decreased substantially since it was first discovered last week, Talos said. The company is not the owner of the pipelines and had ceased production operations in the area four years ago, said spokesman Brian Grove.

An offshore well belonging to S2 Energy was discharging oil about five miles (8 km) away from the Bay Marchand site, the Coast Guard said. The company told the Coast Guard it has secured the wellhead and it was no longer discharging oil.

S2 did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Arpan Varghese and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and Gary McWilliams in Houston; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Matthew Lewis)

Taliban claim control of Panjshir, opposition says resistance will continue

The Taliban claimed victory over opposition forces in the Panjshir valley northeast of Kabul on Monday, declaring that they had completed their takeover of Afghanistan and promising to announce a new government soon.

Pictures on social media showed Taliban members standing in front of the gate of the Panjshir provincial governor’s compound after fighting over the weekend with the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), commanded by Panjshiri leader Ahmad Massoud.

“Panjshir, which was the last hideout of the escapee enemy, is captured,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference.

The Taliban assured the people of Panjshir, who are ethnically distinct from the Pashtun-dominated Taliban and fought against the Islamists during their 1996-2001 rule, that there would be no “discriminatory act against them”.

“They are our brothers and would work together for a joint purpose and welfare of the country,” Mujahid said.

However, Massoud, who leads a force drawn from the remnants of the regular Afghan army as well as local militia fighters, remained defiant and did not concede defeat.

“We are in Panjshir and our Resistance will continue,” he said on Twitter.

His exact whereabouts were unclear. He also said he was safe, but gave no details.

Taliban spokesman Mujahid said he had been told that Massoud and former vice president Amrullah Saleh had escaped to neighbouring Tajikistan.

Ali Maisam Nazary, head of foreign relations at NRFA, said the Taliban’s claim of victory was false and opposition forces continued to fight.

“The NRF forces are present in all strategic positions across the valley to continue the fight,” he said on his Facebook page.

Mujahid denied there were any disagreements within the movement about the formation of a new government and said it would be announced soon, but he did not set a date.

He also said women were back at work in the health and education sectors and “other fields will be provided, one by one, once the system has been established for them”.

LAST POCKET OF RESISTANCE

The militants, who swept back into to power last month as the United States withdrew its troops after a 20-year war, banned girls and women from schools and most work when they last ruled the country.

The group has now said women would be allowed to work across important sectors of society, in line with Islamic law, and their rights would be protected.

The Taliban seized control of most of Afghanistan three weeks ago, taking power in Kabul on Aug. 15 after the Western-backed government collapsed and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.

Panjshir, the last pocket of armed resistance against the Taliban, has a history of being difficult for enemies to take.

The rugged mountain valley is still littered with the wreckage of tanks destroyed during the long war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

The Panjshir fighting has been the most prominent example of resistance to the Taliban. But some cities have also witnessed small, isolated protests for women’s rights or in defence of the green, red and black flag of the vanquished Afghan republic.

U.S.-led foreign forces evacuated about 124,000 foreigners and at-risk Afghans in the weeks before the last U.S. troops left Kabul, but tens of thousands who fear Taliban retribution were left behind.

About 1,000 people, including Americans, have been stuck in northern Afghanistan for days awaiting clearance for their charter flights to leave, an organiser told Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/some-1000-people-awaiting-taliban-flight-clearance-mazar-i-sharif-new-york-times-2021-09-05, blaming the delay on the U.S. State Department.

Reuters could not independently verify the details of the account.

Western powers say they are prepared to engage with the Taliban and send humanitarian aid to people displaced by drought and war, but that formal recognition of the government and broader economic assistance will depend on action, not just promises, to safeguard human rights.

The United Nations said it would convene an international aid conference https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/un-convene-afghanistan-aid-conference-sept-13-2021-09-04 on Sept. 13 to help avert what U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called a looming humanitarian catastrophe.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Simon Cameron-Moore and Angus MacSwan)

Mexico adopts firm stance on auto dispute ahead of U.S. talks

By Sharay Angulo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico expects the United States to comply with automotive rules in the new North American trade pact, a senior official said, taking a firm line ahead of high-level talks next week clouded by a dispute over the future of the car industry in the region.

Mexico and Canada have been at odds for months with the United States over the application of regional content requirements for the auto industry, one of the cornerstones of last year’s United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade pact.

The two countries favor a more flexible interpretation of the rules than the one taken by U.S. officials.

When asked late on Thursday whether a new methodology could be used to avoid taking the row to an international tribunal, Deputy Economy Minister Luz Maria de la Mora told Reuters: “No, because we’re not renegotiating (USMCA). It’s about honoring what was agreed in the treaty.”

“The text of the agreement made very clear what scope for flexibility there was in the deal,” she added, noting that differences between the United States and Mexico on the issue had begun while the Trump administration was still in office.

Under USMCA, which replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), carmakers must meet a 75% threshold for North American content for vehicles in order to qualify for tariff-free trade within the region.

With NAFTA, which former U.S. President Donald Trump had decried as a “disaster” for U.S. industry, the content threshold stood at 62.5%.

Top U.S. and Mexican officials are due to restart the so-called high level economic dialogue on Sept. 9 in Washington, talks that were suspended during Trump’s time in office.

Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier will be among the participants at the dialogue, which Mexico’s government said is in part aimed at deepening economic integration.

On Aug. 20, Mexico requested formal consultations over the interpretation and application of the stricter automotive content rules, but de la Mora said these had not yet begun.

Making the rules tougher than what was agreed under USMCA risked backfiring on the industry, reducing competitiveness, raising costs and making the region “less attractive for investment and production,” de la Mora said.

She added that disputes over content requirements only fanned uncertainty and could even end up benefiting suppliers from other parts of the world with laxer rules like South Korea.

Nevertheless, earlier this week, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he did not expect the dispute to end up before an international tribunal, and expressed optimism that agreement could be reached before long.

(Reporting by Sharay AnguloEditing by Chizu Nomiyama and Frances Kerry)

NATO seeks more Afghan evacuations, vows to hold Taliban to promises

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the alliance would seek to evacuate more vulnerable Afghans and maintain contact with the Taliban, but that Afghanistan’s new rulers would have to show themselves worthy of aid and recognition.

NATO member Turkey, which had run Kabul airport for six years, has offered to help keep it operational now that U.S. and other NATO troops have left, and Qatar has offered to help.

Stoltenberg said he had discussed the issue with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and the Qatari foreign minister.

He also said many Afghans who has cooperated with international forces and could therefore be at risk from the Taliban remained in Afghanistan.

“Operational contact with Taliban is necessary to get people out,” he told Reuters in an interview. “NATO has been able to evacuate most of the staff working for us. But there are still many people left, and we will continue to do work to get them out.”

He warned against expecting a swift recognition of a Taliban government, more than two weeks after the Islamist militia captured Kabul and brought an end to 20 years of war.

Stoltenberg said it was too early to pass judgment on Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar’s designation as head of the new government.

“We have to judge them on their actions, not on their words,” he said. “We will hold them accountable to what they have promised – on preventing Afghanistan being a safe haven for international terrorists, on human rights, especially rights of women, and on free passage.”

Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, echoed many Western governments in vowing to seek moderation from the Taliban, who enforced of a harsh version of Islamic law, including repression of women, when they were in power from 1996 to 2001.

“We will use our leverage, political, diplomatic and financial leverage on the new rulers in Afghanistan, and we will stand united,” he said.

He said diplomatic recognition would be discussed among NATO allies and the wider international community “to put as much pressure as possible on the Taliban government”.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Kevin Liffey)