UN will continue to engage the Taliban in Afghanistan despite new laws restricting women

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A U.N. spokesman says the United Nations will continue to engage all stakeholders in Afghanistan including the Taliban, even though they issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public and severed ties with the U.N. mission. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric in New York defended the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and its head Roza Otunbayeva, who said that the new laws provided a “distressing vision” for Afghanistan’s future. The Taliban say the laws are based on their interpretation of Sharia law. The Ministry of Virtue said Friday that it will no longer cooperate with the U.N. mission in Afghanistan because of its criticism of the laws.