The Taliban yesterday revoked its controversial edict barring women from working for international relief agencies, following talks with UN Coordinator for Afghanistan Erick de Mul.

"Quietly things will return to normal, Afghan women can return to work," de Mul said upon his return to Pakistan. He said the return may be staggered, but Taliban officials had assured him that all Afghan women who were forced off the job last week will be allowed back (Associated Press/CNN.com, 12 Jul).

A Taliban spokesperson attributed the edict to the Taliban's concerns that the employment of women by international agencies posed a "national security issue." According to Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, "about 35,000 women were employed as secret agents and (an) intelligence force of the communist regime" during the decade of Soviet power in Afghanistan. Mujahid said international organizations, including the UN, had ignored a 1998 agreement with the Taliban to provide biographies of all Afghan they hire (Associated Press/MSNBC.com, 12 Jul).

The Associated Press says the Taliban's ban had drastically increased the number of women and children begging in the street and calls the successful de Mul negotiations a "major breakthrough" for the United Nations (Associated Press/New York Times, 13 Jul).

The Taliban also released US aid worker Mary MacMakin yesterday and ordered her to leave the country within 24 hours. She is accused by the regime of spying and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

"I am laughing at these charges. They are just not true," MacMakin said after her release. "I am a threat for the Taliban because my work is with women" (Associated Press/MSNBC.com, 12 Jul).

MacMakin calls the Taliban policies toward women "plain oppression." In an interview with BBC World Update, she said, "I have been ... a real nuisance to the Taliban because I've insisted on having women in the office" (Kate Clark, BBC World Update, 13 Jul).