BRUSSELS — The European Union voiced disapproval on Wednesday of the Taliban's provisional government in Afghanistan after the Islamist militants named several leaders, saying they had not kept a promise to include women and other religious groups.

The EU clarified that it is looking "very carefully" into the behavior of the new interim government in Afghanistan regarding freedom and women's rights making any decision to engage with it.

European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic announced this position in a news conference in Brussels following a meeting of the full European Commission, the EU's executive body, Wednesday.

He said there are a "set of conditions stemming very much from our European nature, respect for values, women rights and basic freedoms."

"And therefore we are looking very, very carefully how the new government is behaving before engaging in such a discussion," he noted.

The Commission held an "in-depth discussion" on the latest developments in Afghanistan, said Sefcovic who is responsible for inter-institutional relations and foresight in the European Commission.

The meeting reviewed the evacuations of EU nationals and Afghans working for EU institutions in Afghanistan and humanitarian aid and discussed the situation as regards support for the region and development assistance, he said.

The Commission analyzed the impact of its policies and reflected on the first conclusions to be drawn on the events while noting that situation in Afghanistan "is still very fluid and requires close monitoring."

He told the news conference after the weekly meeting of the full Commission that the EU is ready to continue to offer humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and added that it has been decided to increase the budget for humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan to 200 million euro ($236 million) for this year.

"Now we are evaluating how we can offer the humanitarian assistance to make sure it is safe that it goes it to the people who really need it because there is a lot of internally displaced persons, there is a lot of fluidity in the country and therefore we have to proceed very carefully," said the EU official.

"At the same time we are extending the scope of humanitarian assistance because we know that countries in the region will be very much affected by the current situation in Afghanistan," he said.

He said the EU is coordinating with the international institutions and its closest collaborates how to offer the humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

"Now we are evaluating how we can offer the humanitarian assistance to make sure it is safe that it goes it to the people who really need its because there is a lot of internally displaced persons, there is a lot of fluidity in the country and therefore we have to proceed very carefully," he said.

"At the same time we are extending the scope of humanitarian assistance because we know that countries in the region will be very much affected by the current situation in Afghanistan," he said.

On EU development assistance for Afghanistan, he said it is "another story" noting that the EU foreign ministers as well as interior ministers recently discussed the issue and put a set of conditions. — Agencies