The Taliban interim government intends to send its representative to the 15th Heads of State and Government Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Gambia, Turkish media reported.
In Kabul, Abdul Salam Hanafi, the Deputy Prime Minister for Administrative Affairs of Afghanistan, reportedly met with Tariq Ali Bakheet, the special envoy representing the OIC Secretary-General for Afghanistan.
In their discussions, Hanafi emphasized the shared challenges faced across the Islamic world and stressed the need for mutual cooperation among Muslim nations to address the issues effectively.
The 15th OIC Summit will be held on May 4-5 in Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. Leaders from the organization's 57 member states and beyond are expected to attend.
Afghanistan has been a member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation since 1969.
Last year, OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha expressed growing concern over a reported ban by the de facto Afghan government on women working in national and international NGOs.
"The OIC Secretary-General qualified the ban on women’s work for national and international NGOs as self-defeating and disserving the interests of Afghan people, vigorously calling on the de facto authorities to revisit this decision for the sake of social inclusion of women and the undisrupted continuation of the much-needed international humanitarian safety net in Afghanistan," the OIC then said in a statement.
As for the Taliban's relations with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in early April that it would be possible to talk about the Kremlin's stance on the possibility of excluding the Taliban from Russia's list of terrorist organizations only after the issue is worked out.
Peskov added that Moscow has no information about the possible participation of the Taliban in the "Russia and the Muslim World" forum in Russia's city of Kazan.
The Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik earlier that the issue of removing the Taliban movement from the list of terrorist organizations in Russia is being processed, and the country's leadership would make a final decision.
To date, no country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, although more than a dozen countries have diplomatic missions in the capital, Kabul.
* The Taliban is listed as a terrorist organization by the United Nations in UNSCR 1267.