German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tested positive at the beginning of her visit to Pakistan, shortly after holding a press conference warning the Afghan Taliban about human rights. Baerbock has since cancelled all of her appointments, a spokesperson said. She was originally due to travel on wards to Greece and Turkey after Pakistan.
Earlier, Baerbock called on the Afghan Taliban to respect human rights. “The international community must stand united and together, and tell the Taliban loud and clear, you are heading in the wrong direction,” Baerbock said at a joint press conference with Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Islamabad. “There is no room for normalisation and even less for the recognition of the Taliban as legitimate rulers of the country,” she said.
Under the Taliban, she said girls are being deprived of their right to education, women are almost entirely excluded from participation in public life and dissenting voices are being brutally suppressed. – dpa