Top Pakistan diplomat urges flood aid, patience with Taliban

28/9/2022 12:22

        Pakistan's foreign minister says the international community should work with Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, not against it, when it comes to combatting foreign extremist groups and the economic and humanitarian crises in that country — even as many U.S. officials say the Taliban have proved themselves unworthy of such cooperation.
        
        Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan's top diplomat, spoke to The Associated Press in the final days of a trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and to Washington that has focused on trying to draw more world attention to unprecedented flooding that has one-third of his country underwater.
        
        Unrelenting monsoon rains that scientists say are worsened by climate change have killed more than 1,000 people in Pakistan, caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and destroyed much of the country's staple food and commercial crops.