Taliban Announce New Provisional Government

(CNN) – The Taliban announced a new interim government at a press conference Tuesday with Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund as acting prime minister of the Taliban government and Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar as his deputy.

Mullah Yaqoob will be the acting Defense Minister. Yaqoob is one of the two deputy leaders of the Taliban since 2016.

As announced, Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa will be Minister of Culture and Information; Minister of Economy, Qari Din Muhammad Hanif; Acting Minister of Tribes and Borders, Noorullah Nouri; and Finance Minister Mullah Hedayatullah Badri.

What the White House said about the new Taliban government

White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated that “there is no rush for recognition” by the United States towards the new Taliban government in Afghanistan announced on Tuesday. “It really will depend on what steps the Taliban take,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to New York.

“The world will be watching, the United States included, and they will be watching if they allow American citizens and citizens of other countries to leave. If they allow people who want to leave the country to leave, if they allow humanitarian assistance in, how they treat women and girls across the country, ”said Psaki. “I don’t have a timeline for you. It depends on the behavior they show on the ground. “

Returning to the White House from Wilmington, Delaware on Monday, President Joe Biden was asked if there are plans to recognize the Taliban. “That’s a long way,” he told reporters on the south lawn.

On whether the president has been updated recently on how many American citizens remain in Afghanistan, Psaki told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins: “You get regular updates from your national security team on our efforts to get American citizens out of the country, so yeah. “.

He mentioned Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s trip to Qatar today, where he is “working to see what we can do to make the flights operational, not only from Kabul, but from other regional airports in the country, because we know it well, that’s also part of getting people out who want to leave, including the remaining US citizens. “

Psaki also noted efforts by the United States to ensure that humanitarian aid can still flow into the region, telling reporters Tuesday that the White House has “great concern” on the issue and “is in close coordination with the UN and with our partners in the region and around the world. ”