ISLAMABAD (AP) — The US has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to a desperately poor Afghanistan on the brink of an economic disaster, while refusing to give political recognition to the country’s new Taliban rulers, the Taliban said Sunday. On Saturday, however, the Taliban ruled out cooperation with Washington on containing the increasingly active Islamic State group in Afghanistan. However, he warned that the Taliban’s longtime support for al-Qaida make them unreliable as counterterrorism partners with the United States. That prompted the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan that drove the Taliban from power. During the meeting, US officials were expected to press the Taliban to allow Americans and others to leave Afghanistan.
