Taliban deputy says there is no excuse for education bans on Afghan women and girls

A senior Taliban figure has urged the group's leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them, in a rare public rebuke of government policy.

Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a speech on Saturday in southeastern Khost province.

He told an audience at a religious school ceremony there was no reason to deny education to women and girls, "just as there was no justification for it in the past and there shouldn't be one at all."